From Interview Transcript to Interpretive Story: Part 2— Developing an Interpretive Story

Writing interpretive stories from the views highlighted by the multiple lenses of active listening, narrative processes, language, context, and moments is the second part of the author's answer to the question, What do we do after we have transcribed our interview tapes? Interpretive stories offer an alternative mode of representation of interview transcripts to the traditional approach in which a transcript is fractured into smaller segments of text and then recombined into themes that move across stories, across people, and across contexts. As situated accounts inclusive of the multiple voices of the participant and those of the researcher, interpretive stories open the reader to the possibility of multiple interpretations.