Interviewing by Comment: An Adjunct to the Direct Question.

Interviewing by direct question has long been the sociologist's favored means of collecting data. This article seeks to expand understanding of the research interview by proposing the comment as a supplementary data gathering technique. Several methodological and theoretical considerations are discussed that indicate the appropriateness of interviewing by comment for the general purpose of discovery and for eliciting information about certain behaviors, events, and relationships. In order to demonstrate concretely the utility of interviewing by comment, eight types of comments that can be employed for a variety of research purposes are presented and illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]