Composing Strategies

Be guided by the suggestions contained in Chapter 12 of On Writing Well, "Writing about People: The Interview."  Let me highlight a few of Zinsser's precepts and observations:

• Get people talking.  Learn to ask questions that will elicit answers about what is most interesting or vivid in their lives. 
  
• Choose as your subject someone whose job [or experience] is so important or so interesting or so unusual that the average reader would want to read about that person.
  . . .  Choose, in short, someone who touches some corner of the reader's life. 
  
• The basic tools for an interview are paper and some well-sharpened pencils. 
  
• Make a list of likely questions. 
  
• Just say, "Hold it a minute, please," and write until you catch up. 
  
• [I]f the speaker's conversation is ragged–if his sentences trail off, if his thoughts are disorderly, if his language is so tangled that it would embarrass him–the writer has no choice but to clean up the English and provide the missing links."
  
• Remember that you can call [or revisit] the person you interviewed. 
  
• What's wrong . . . is to fabricate quotes or to surmise what someone might have said.  
  

Some additional things to keep in mind:

        1.  Prepare for this assignment by reading some good profiles (assigned readings).  If you'd like additional examples, please just let me know: I'll be happy to provide you with some excellent essays. 

        2.  Give a lot of thought to your choice of a subject--and feel free to solicit advice from family, friends, and co-workers.   Don't feel at all obliged to choose a person who's socially prominent or who has had an obviously exciting life.  Your task is to bring out what is interesting about your subject–no matter how ordinary this individual may at first appear.   In the past, students have written some excellent profiles on a wide array of subjects: school teachers, waitresses, librarians, store detectives, medical professionals, card sharks, musicians, barbers, pimps, ministers, thieves, pilots, shrimpers–even one Amway distributor.  Keep in mind, however, that the present occupation of your subject may be inconsequential; the focus of the profile may instead be on your subject's involvement in some notable experience or event in the past.   Students have written superior profiles of the first African-American who applied (in the early 1960s) to be a student at Armstrong; of a man who (as a teenager) sold vegetables door to door during the Depression; of a woman who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King; of a woman whose family operated a successful moonshine operation; of a musician who performed with some of the big bands of the 1930s and ‘40s.    The truth is, wonderful subjects are all around us: the challenge is to get them talking and then to find a focus.  If you hit a wall in your quest for the right subject, let me know as soon as possible: if necessary, I'll arrange an introduction for you.

        3.  See the recommended online readings (above) for additional tips on conducting effective interviews. 

        4.   The first rough "draft" that you submit may simply be a typed transcript of your interview session(s).  We can discuss ways to organize these raw materials and turn them into polished profiles. 

        5.  In moving from transcripts to profile, we'll face the major task of focusing our approach to the subject.  Don't attempt to provide a life story in 1,500 words: attend to key details, incidents, experiences.  And be prepared to let us know exactly what your subject looks like and sounds like.  The essay should be built primarily on direct quotations from your subject as well as factual observations and informative details.

        6.  Although your primary concern in the profile is, of course, with the person you have interviewed, the circumstances surrounding your encounter with the subject may be incorporated into the essay–if such details serve a purpose. 

        7.   As you work on converting your transcripts into an essay, feel free to e-mail any portion of your work to me for quick feedback. 

        8.    Review the strategies recommended on the previous assignment sheets–particularly strategies related to targeting an audience as well as revising and editing.

Format
Drafts (i.e., transcripts) simply need to be word processed in a question-and-answer format.   When you send me the transcript, please include a brief note explaining (a) what parts of the interview are most likely to make their way into your final essay, and (b) what angle(s) or point(s) of focus you intend to follow in the essay.
The final version of the essay should be word processed, following the standard format (see previous assignments).  Following your essay, provide a brief self-evaluation by responding to these questions:

        1.  What part of this profile do you like most, and why?
        2.  What part gave you the most difficulty?  Explain.
        3.  What is your overall evaluation of the profile--its  particular strengths and possible weaknesses?

Please be as specific as you can in your answers.