Paper #3.1: Interview Component

PART I: The Interview

Complete this portion as soon as possible, but no later than Monday, April 13, 2015 (three weeks from now).

Assignment Description:

For the interview, you will need to contact an expert in your field and interview them about their experiences in the workplace based on the topics we’ve been talking about in class–e.g., do they feel like a part of a network? do they feel that their work has political meaning? what kind of rhetorical work do they do? Etc.  This expert can be a professor, an advanced graduate student, or someone working in your field of study.  If you are nervous about making this initial contact, please let me know, and I will send you a contact template you can use to reach out to your expert via email, explaining the purposes of this class and of this assignment.

So what is the purpose of this assignment…?

1. To help you better understand what it means to write, think, and communicate like an expert in your disciplinary field.
2. To help you gain insight into how experts make meaning and develop disciplinary identity using texts and workplace conversations.
3. To help you gain some understanding of the sorts of workplace protocols, problem-solving techniques, maneuvers, and management or leadership styles await you in your chosen field.
4. To help you make a contact in a company/research group/department of interest to you.  Therefore, it is important that you make a positive, lasting impression on your interviewee, as you might require their help networking later on.
5. To test drive some of the vocabulary and concepts we’ve been using in class and see how they resonate in the “real world.”

Below is an interview protocol—a sample summary statement to share at the beginning of the interview, to get things rolling, followed by a list of questions to ask your interviewee. Be sure to ask the bolded questions under each category, but feel free to (1) pick and choose from other questions and (2) ask follow-up questions of your own design as they seem appropriate. Keep track of your pacing through the interview so that you don’t extend the interview longer than your interviewee agreed it would go (30-45 minutes). Be sure to take good notes or record the interview (with your interviewee’s permission) so that you can describe what you learned in your brief summary and analysis.  (***Rubric below the Interview Protocol***)

Interview Protocol:

Sample Introductory Statement
The purpose of this interview is to find out more about communication and expertise within our disciplinary field of study. Specifically, I will ask you about how you visually, verbally, and textually communicate, and problem-solve as a disciplinary expert, and what sorts of tools, spaces, and materials you use. I will start with a few questions to help me understand the parameters of your job and how you position yourself within your field. And then I will ask about the personal, cognitive, social, and knowledge-based dimensions of communication within your discipline. We will take about 30-45 minutes.

Starters: These questions are intended to clarify your work and disciplinary identity.

• What do you consider your discipline or field (e.g. computer science, engineering, technical management, etc.)
• What is your job title?
• What are your main responsibilities in this job?

Personal Dimension: These questions are intended to focus on the personal or identity aspects of communication within your discipline.

• In general, how does someone come to be an expert in this discipline?
• What texts or communication practices are required in the process of becoming a disciplinary expert?
• What intangible criteria/values/attributes define an expert in your field? (In other words, what do you need besides skills to become an expert?  Does this job require a particular personality or temperament? tacit knowledge?)
• Are you consciously aware of your strengths and weaknesses as you go through your day on the job?

Cognitive Dimension: These questions are intended to focus on the ways in which an expert in your discipline makes meaning from texts and conversations—from communication broadly.

• Can you walk me through a disciplinary problem/issue/area of work that you are currently working on?

• Guiding Questions:
  • What sorts of communication practices, texts, and instruments are required as you work on this problem?
  • How does effective communication aid you as you work on this problem?
  • Which tools are most important and why?  Would you consider them actors?
  • Are you doing experiments? What do those look like? How do you design a good experiment?

• Can you describe for me the sorts of texts you read with some regularity that accompany work on this problem? (visual, audio, paper, chart, graph, journal article, output from technical device, memos, code, etc.)

• How do you decide if the text you are dealing with is of good quality?

• Guiding Questions
  • What does a good disciplinary text look like? and when do you use it?
  • How does a good text keep your attention?
  • What do you hope to get out of a good text?
  • What is your process for retaining information from these texts?

• Can you describe for me the sorts of communication/instrumental snags you encounter as you work on this problem, and how you solve them?

• In this class we’re working on identifying strategies that experts like yourself use while communicating. We think of these strategies as ways of presenting ourselves or our ideas in a manner that helps others to make meaning from our words with the least amount of distortion or confusion. With that in mind, if you were to teach a newcomer to the field about how to survive the problem-solving you just described, and to be a clear communicator generally, what would you teach them?
Social Dimension: These questions are intended to focus on your role within your community of practice and the social practices involved with being a disciplinary expert

• How do you share knowledge with other members of your community (e.g. publishing, writing, speaking, mentoring, etc.)?

• Guiding Questions:
  • Why does this technique work best?
  • Or, why does this technique need improvement?

• Are there any particular texts or conversational techniques important to this community?
• What sorts of leaders or managers are common within your workplace, and how do you deal with them?
• How often and in what context do you interact with disciplinary experts outside our field?
• What is the most rewarding part of this job? And what does successful communication have to do with that aspect?
• What is the most stressful part of this job? And how might communication play into that aspect, as well?

Knowledge Dimension: These questions are intended to focus on the disciplinary knowledge unique to your discipline, particularly in regards to the ways that knowledge is expressed in conversation.

• What would you say are essential categories, areas, or kinds of information that an expert must know in order to do the work of our discipline? How are they communicated?
• What is the process for coming to know and communicate this essential knowledge?
• Have you ever had to make a presentation based on your field-specific knowledge? What was that like?

*   *   *

PART II: Summary and Analysis (100 points, or a third of Paper 3 – 10% of grade)

Due as part of your final exam paper, Monday, May 4th by 9:30 pm, via electronic submission.

Assignment Description:

Write a brief (4-5 double-spaced pages, 12 point basic font, 1″ margins) summary of the expert’s answers and your analysis of those answers.

Assignment Rubric:

Part I: Background: (10 points)

Provide background information: Where did the interview take place?  Who did you interview?  What did you expect going in? How receptive was your interviewee to answering questions? Etc.

Part II: Summary: (60 points)

Highlight the key points/significant thoughts expressed by the interviewee for each dimension below…

• Personal: This dimension focuses on the personal or identity aspects of workplace communication. ______/15
• Cognitive: This dimension focuses on the ways in which an expert in your discipline thinks about/makes meaning from communicating and experimenting. ________/15
• Social: This dimension focuses on your future role within a community of practice and the social and scientific practices involved with that community’s communication needs. ________/15
• Knowledge: This dimension focuses on the disciplinary knowledge required for successful communication. _______/15

Part III: Analysis: (30 points)

Provide critical insight into your interview:  (e.g., Did the expert’s responses meet your expectations?  What surprised you about the responses?  What did you agree/disagree with?  Did the responses change the way you think about communication and experimentation in your discipline, and if so in what ways?) Etc.

Part IV: Grammar and Formatting: (discretionary and hopefully not necessary)

If your paper does not meet the page length requirement, follow the formatting rules, or use proper grammar and syntax, I will deduct points as I see fit, given the flagrancy of error.  If you are concerned by your ability to produce a grammatically correct assignment, please take your paper by the writing center.  If you provide written proof that you scheduled and received professional aid from the writing center, I will waive deductions for grammar.