Interview quotes

Kvale has some guidelines for reporting interview quotes. It's timely that I've found them, because I'm just writing up some interviews, and before now, my supervisors have criticised my writing for having too many quotes, over-long quotes, and not linking quotes up with my own explanations.

Kvale suggests:

1. relate quotes to the general text
2. contextualise the quotes
3. interpret the quotes
4. there should be a balance between quotes and text
5. quotes should be short
6. use only the best quote
7. interview quotes should be rendered in a written style
8. there should be a simple signature system for editing the quotes.

Kvale expands on each of these guidelines - they're worth reading.

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Kvale, 1996, InterViews: introduction to qualitative research interviewing (page 266, Box 14.4)