Assignment A1

Due: Oct 4.

Interviews

Conduct 6 interviews on a topic related to one of the variables included in the data set that comes with ASR. You may interview anyone you want.

The interviews will have two parts. The first and longer part will be unstructured. You will try to find out why your respondent thinks the way s/he does about the issue you chose to investigate. The interview should last at least a half an hour. You must take good, hand written notes.

Then in the second part of your interview, you have to ask the question from the GSS that is closest to your topic and record the answer (Appendix A). Within 24 hours (and this is very important!!!, not later, but within 24 hours) of conducting the interview you must enter the interview into your word processor.

You can also use a voice recorder. In that case you have a few extra days to transcribe the interviews. But even if you use a voice recorder, you should take notes. Those notes can be more cursory. Enter those notes too in your file.

Each interview will be a separate file. You should not simply copy your notes, but should add anything else that you still remember or know about the person that is relevant to the topic. You must have at least one page of single-spaced notes for the unstructured part for each interview. Your notes must start with the time, place and length of the interview, the gender, age occupation and race of the respondent. At the end, you should also include the respondent's answer to the GSS question on a separate page.

Submit the six files as an e-mail attachment to me at aronatas@ucsd.edu.