Analysis of Personal Narratives

Valuable input into my analysis of Gita’s narrative. It is a common experience for investigators to carefully craft interview questions, only to have participants respond with lengthy accounts—long stories that appear, on the surface, to have little to do with the question. I became aware of the issue in the early 1980s while researching the topic of divorce. After completing a household interview with a divorcing spouse, I would note that a respondent had gone “on and on. ” Asking a seemingly straightforward question (e.g. “what were the main causes of your separation”), I expected a list but, instead, got a “long story. ” Those of us on the research team interpreted the stories as digressions. Subsequently,…