5 best tips on how to write an interview gender essay

Interview essay presents the views of different people to a specific event, person, phenomenon etc. We all see the interviews daily: on TV, in newspapers or magazines. We can even participate in one, answering some questions as a random person caught on the street. But taking interviews or - what is more important - analyzing and interpreting their results can be trickier than we can expect.

Things get more complicated when we start to talk about gender. Gender is a very sensitive topic and you should prepare your questions waaay more carefully than for most other interviews. People can get offended. People can get angry. You might be accused of misgendering, disrespect to personal life and boundaries etc.

Let’s read through some tips about making an interview gender essay - and making it perfect!

1. Choose your audience for the interview

To start questioning people you should decide who you will ask. If we are talking about gender interview, you should either choose one gender, or several of them. In the second case you should make sure that each gender is represented evenly (or otherwise you should state it separately).

Another viable choice of interview essay is to choose a place and then count the people of different genders in it. For example: “Gender diversity in (college, profession, political party etc.)” can be a great topic for a gender essay. This way is easier but may need more respondents.

2. Be very sensitive and gentle

As we said above, gender is a very acute topic. Prepare your questions very carefully, make sure they aren’t sound offending. You may ask your friends of appropriate gender to be your “test subjects” and tell you if the questions are okay. Also, you can read https://studymoose.com/conflict to find the right tone of voice taking as an example controversial topics and how they are described for different audiences. 

Don’t judge people by their appearance. Ask their gender and treat them in your interview according to what they’ll say to you. Learn the difference between biological sex, gender and sexual orientation and be ready to explain it to your respondents (who may get puzzled with the very concept).

If you already have enough answers from people of your respondent’s gender, don’t turn them down - they might think that you don’t want to interview them precisely because of their gender. Still ask them your questions, but write them down separately and don’t include them in the overall statistics.

3. Structure your future essay

Now when you have materials, you may start shaping your essay. Usually, an interview essay consists of four parts: introduction - where you identify the purpose of your essay and establish the criteria of interviews; theoretical part - actually the theory, the previous research papers on this subject and your own assumption you are going to prove; practical part - the interviews themselves and their analysis, graphs and all; conclusion - where you sum up your work, tell if you managed to prove your point and if your results are in line with the previous research papers.

Despite the essay is shaped similar to a major scientific work, it’s still an essay. Use the space wisely. Vaguely distribute the paragraphs between the parts and try to write only about the most essential things to save space for everything you want to squeeze into your word limit.

5. Make it clear: people are going to read it!

You can be an expert in gender theory, but your audience is not. Again: while this is shaped like scientific thesis, walks like one and quacks like one - but it’s still an essay! Use simple words describing the complicated theory, explain the definitions you use and use clear graphs and tables to illustrate the results of your analysis. It really helps and makes the audience much more benevolent.

Don’t be afraid to look like an amateur. The best scientists can make a lecture on their subjects for toddlers and still be the best scientists! The ability to explain things simply is a precious benefit, not a drawback.

As you can see, an interview essay demands lots of extra work - but the result is the new skill that will be very, very useful to you during your preparation to your Bachelor or Master thesis. This is a great training tool for every future scientist, so use this chance (and our tips!) to write an outstanding essay, that may, as well, become the first step towards your major research.