Constructing a Successful Interview

In the reading, it discussed the correct strategies of asking and responding to an interview in order to get as much out of it as possible. The reading referred to this as learning to ask and learning to listen during an interview. It explained the importance of structuralism and flexibly, the process of having predetermined questions before the interview and the ability to be flexible and follow your informant's lead. You always need to be aware and expect the unexpected.

There are two different kinds of questions to be asked during interviews, open and closed. Open questions are more conversational and let the informant know your interested in what they are saying which ultimately makes them more comfortable. Closed questions are questions that require a little research to be done allowing you to ask the right questions in the interview. The reading also talked about how to listen intently during an interview. Using body language (eye contact, no fiddling) and not interrupting while the informant is talking lets them know you are encouraging and acknowledging their responses and interested in what they are saying.

The reading also displayed a few examples of good interview questions and answers and how to change them to essay format, also known as oral histories. It explained how to balance the informants voice and the interviewer's descriptions. You want to use many details and keep yourself in the background, doing this will allow the informant to tell their story.

Interview

In the interview of the Hanover Bowladrome by Nicole Williams, she made it more than just an interview on a piece of paper, she created a story using the form of interviewing. She provided much useful information about her site but also incorporated other background information about her topic that may be interesting for the readers to begin her paper. She also found a way of balancing out the different people she chose to talk to. She separated it by groups almost, for example she talked to someone in the woman's league, a person from the men's league, the owner of the bowling alley, and a visitor just simply bowling for fun. This gave different views and perspectives of the bowling alley and added contrast to her paper. She applied much detail in her descriptions of the people she observed and talked to and she used direct quotes from her interview in her paper. She talked about the different leagues within the alley, how some play for fun and others for competition, how long they have been interested in the aspect of bowling, and how for some,it is a fun tradition that runs in the family. This paper portrayed a perfect example of how to create a good paper based on interviewing and will be very helpful in the writing of my future interview ethnography.


Attached is a link I found on tips for writing a good interview essay. I felt it had good points and would help in the beginning process of the interview ethnography.
http://www.customwritten.com/Writing/interview-essay.html

Group Presentation

For my presentation, my group's desired topic is design principle/document design. Although we just started working on it in class today, I feel we made good progress towards beginning the presentation. In class, we researched in the books offered and also found some websites online with very useful information for our specific topic. After doing a little research, we decided we would divide up the topic so we could do our own further research at home. After doing so, we would bring back our own results and put the entire power point together as a group in class on Friday.
The more narrow topic I chose inside of my broader topic is the Do's and Don'ts in document design. I collected and copied down helpful notes for my part of the presentation so I am prepared to put the final power point together with my group. All we need to do now is figure out what other element we can do for our presentation to add to the power point. So far, I feel confident in the work of my group and myself for this presentation and I think we will be right on task for our group presentation on design principle/document design this coming Monday.

Attached is a link for one of the useful websites we found on our topic.
http://desktoppub.about.com/od/designprinciples/Principles_of_Design.htm

Midterm Portfolio

http://shaelynsengl-102portfolio.weebly.com/index.html

Bear's Den

Notes:
-Wednesday, 1:30pm, busy lunch hour (everyone just got out of class or has a break)
-loud, a lot of talking and interacting between students and staff
-long lines, frustrated students (hungry)& staff because it is so busy
-all booths are taken (as usual)
-smells of pizza and tacos
-couple in Mexican food line. blonde curly hair, coach purse, black Ugg boots, north face jacket. Her boyfriend messy brown hair, gray Bridgewater sweat pants, black sweat shrit
-older lady in front of them (looked like she may work at the school) wearing business clothing, very indecisive
- employees, young man (student?) nice seemed to be people person smiling, brown hair & beard, older woman blonde & glasses (looked crabby) not friendly, can't wait to leave work.
- older women-careless, doesn't care how her food is executed just wants to get it done
-guy, food made to your liking



As I enter the commuter café also known as Bear's Den, around 1:30 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon, I am flustered with the amount of people crowding the lines and enjoying their afternoon meal. My stomach had been growling since English class as I was craving the very popular, mouth watering chicken quesadilla prepared in the Mexican section of the dining hall. Unfortunately once I arrived, the line had at least 10 people in it, all frustrated by the long wait. As I waited anxiously for my turn to order, I happened to notice a couple holding hands in front of me. The girl seemed to be very well dressed to impress, with curly golden locks, a couch purse, black Ugg boots with a matching black North face jacket. Her boyfriend seemed less concerned with his appearance. He had messy brown hair as if he had just rolled out of bed, gray sweatpants with the words Bridgewater State University embroided down the side and a black sweatshirt. In front of the couple, there was a rather middle aged woman wearing heels and dressed in a gray business casual ensemble who looked like she was having a little trouble figuring out what she wanted to order. Her constant head bobs, looking up and down at the menu and at the workers, made it obvious she was narrowing down her decision. As I grew closer to the front of the line, I started to examine how each worker made each order.

As I was observing, it became more clear who was the better quesadilla maker. An older, somewhat disturbed women with black glasses and short, blonde hair worked at the station and barely had enough energy to greet anyone with a "Hello". To her right, a younger man with brown hair and a beard, I think a student here at the college, always gave a wholehearted "Hi, What can I get for you?". I observed how each worker constructed their orders, I noticed the older woman sloppily place one scoop of chicken (not even enough to fill out the entire wrap) right in the middle leaving no chicken for the end pieces. While placing a small hand full of cheese directly on top of the chicken and a tiny amount jalapeño sauce to top off the order the way a one star restaurant would serve it. The younger man however perfectly executed the art of a quesadilla and actually completed the task with a smile on his face, almost as if he was proud of the accomplishment each time he made something. He had added the perfect amount of chicken spread it out over the entire wrap so every bite would have a piece of chicken as well as cheese and jalapeño sauce. It was clear who I wanted to make my quesadilla, but luck was not on my side that day. As I approached the station, the older woman let out a meek cry, "What do you want?" and with disappointment, I responded with my order. About 5 minutes later, a terribly cut, burnt quesadilla found its way to me while the person in front of me received a perfectly browned chicken quesadilla. All I could do was stare in jealousy as I was forced to accept and eat the horrible work of the old, bothered woman.

Lay of the Land

The essay "Lay of the Land" by Nicole Williams is a very good essay and example of an ethnography. Her chosen site of research is a bowling alley.  She uses many details in her explanations of the people that she sees at the bowling alley, especially in the men and women's bowling leagues that take place on Monday nights. Her explanations are much in depth and help to paint a clear image in the readers mind of the bowling alley and the types of people who go to the bowling alley. Although her details are very informative, I feel that there might be too many at times and some of them may be irrelevant. For example, the sentence, "The final member of the team is a man who is in his late 20’s or early 30’s and is wearing shorts, despite the cold weather outside, a HHH sleeveless shirt and has a gold hoop in his ear. HHH is a professional wrestler, so it is obvious that this man likes to watch wrestling.  Wrestling starts at 8 o’clock on Monday nights, so he will probably be leaving in time to get home and watch" does a good job explaining the mans overall appearance and interests however it is unnecessary in this essay because the essay is about bowling leagues not what time wrestling is on tv. She does an excellent job describing the setting of the essay and how the bowling alley looks. Towards the middle, she starts to talk about the actual leagues more which I think is the main fucus of the essay. The detail of the bowling alley, food, concession stands and etc are great. It seems to me like she wrote this essay based on 1 to 2 visits, but with those visits it is clear that she took a lot of notes. I think she did a great job on this ethnography however for the future I think she should talk more about the actual leagues and less detail about all the people.

Study Abroad Office

The study abraod office is located on the 3rd floor in the Maxwell Library on the Bridgewater State University campus. They hold informational meetings and walk in hours twice a week. You can go in and talk one on one with a professional directly about your future studies and they will assist you as soon as possible to get you started on your educational endeavers. You can either live with a host family or stay at your University of interest. You must apply to the school you are planning on attending but also apply at the study abraod office here to show your desire to travel. They always try and accept everyone who has an interest because they want you to fulfill your dreams of immersing yourself into new cultures. They will put in the effort to assist you in getting that once in a lifetime experience.

I have many questions about the study abraod program here at BSU because I am planning on studying abroad next spring and would like to be well informed and prepared. How can they help you decide what the perfect place for you to spend your semester is? What is the first step to take if you are planning on spending a semester over seas? How long is the process and how early can you start? How do the credits transfer? These are the questions I can think of off the top of my head but I know there will be more to come when I actually get started in my observations. I can't wait to learn more about it.