Structure of an interview

This is a plan which you work off interviewing most people in order to build their confidence and allow them to relax in the interview. It is important to structure your interview questions correctly in order to get the interviewee to answer your questions to your satisfaction. This involves getting them to relax into the interview before getting to the long hard questions. We do this to get the answers we want and something to that will be in the interest of our target audience. Most interviews are structured in the following way:
Introduction
Developmental questions
Confidence building
Key questions
Soundbites
Summary
Windup

Introduction
This particular structure is used to introduce the interviewee into the topic being discussed and help them relax into the answering the key questions. All traditional interviews begin with an introduction.
An example is the video below that shows Rihanna on Good Morning America, she was there to promote her new line of cosmetics. The interviewer introduced as the "best selling digital artist", "most liked person on Facebook", "first artist to surpass four billion hits on Youtube" and so many other praises. This is used to prepare Rihanna to ease into the interview as a superstar so she can talk more about her achievements and her new role with Mac cosmetics.

Developmental questions
They are generally light hearted questions that relaxes the interviewee and also gets the interview started. An example of a developmental questions is, how are you doing? It gets the interviewee talking and makes them comfortable into answering further questions to your satisfaction.


Confidence building
This type of question helps your interviewee build confidence and get rid of any nervous feeling they are having. It is important to build your interviewee's confidence if they haven't been interviewed before or if they are talking about a sensitive or personal issue. This will put them at ease into answering your upcoming questions and probably give you long and detailed answers. Complimenting your interviewee is a good way building their confidence. The author in the video below wrote "Fifty Shades of Grey." She is being interviewed concerning her book and its contents and success. The interview started by asking her if she ever imagined her book would "take off the way it has" This question got her talking about her expectations, inspirations and so on of the book. This writer may or may not get to talk in so many interview but it was essential for the interviewer to build her confidence in order to get the author going into details about her book.

Key questions
These are the questions you want your interviewee to answer, they are the most important part of your interview. They are generally asked earlier on in the interview but if the interview is more emotional and personal then key questions should be asked in the middle of the interview in order to give the interviewee time to relax and be comfortable in answering those questions. They can take a lot of time as you would expect your interviewee to reveal as much information as possible so it is essential to plan your interview towards having enough time for that part of the interview. This interview of Rita Ora is about her background as a refugee and even though it's a sensitive and personal issue for the star, the interviewer still had to ask her about her identity and how much she identifies as a refugee. She revealed how she feels upset when refugees are told to "get out" and how much she wants the society to help refugees rather than push them away. We can see that this part of the interview is where Rita Ora got into mush detail about the issue and it took most part of the interview.

Soundbites
Soundbites are cut outs of a main interview. They include the most important part of an interview  and they last between 10-30 seconds. They can be used in radio broadcasts and entertainment bulletins. They are gathered after the interview has taken place.

Summary
This comes at the end of the interview, you will summarize all the questions you've asked in an interview into one question in order to get a good conclusion on the topic of the interview. Summarizing your interview makes if more professional and gives your interviewee the impression you have been listening. Miley Cyrus talks about her transition from the innocent girl who played Hannah Montana to her current nude lifestyle. At the end of the interview the interviewer Barbara Walters asked Miley Cyrus when she'll "reinvent the next person" in her. This question allowed Miley to reveal her next tour and it also summarized the whole purpose of the interview. We can see that Miley was pleased as she invited Walters to her tour personally.

Windup
This is the very last thing you do at the end of an interview. It rounds up everything you've done to a stop, this involves a light hearted question and thanking your interviewee for participating. For instance, after an interview with a pop star like Rihanna, I will say "thank you for the interview, it's a pleasure having you here" This will show Rihanna I've had a good time interviewing her and make her feel like I want to do it again sometime, which is good for keeping your clients as friends.