The book begins with a theoretically informed introduction to qualitative interviewing by presenting a variegated landscape of how conversations have been used for knowledge producing purposes. Particular attention is given to the complementary positions of experience focused interviewing (phenomenological positions) and language focused interviewing (discourse oriented positions), which concentrate on interview talk as reports (of the experiences of interviewees) and accounts (occasioned by the situation of interviewing) respectively.
The second edition has a new chapter on conducting interviews in practice and is updated with new sections on research ethics and the relevance of small-scale studies in a world of "big data", many updated references, recent examples of interview studies, and reflections on similarities and differences between research interviews, journalism, and the arts.