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How to write interview questions for a historical figure

8 min read

Good interview questions for a historical figure are open (they ask how, why or what it was like), specific (they name a date, a person or a document), and possible (they ask only about things the figure could know before they died). Write a main question for each stage of the life, add one follow-up to each, and check every question against a source that holds the answer.

What makes a question good

A good question gives the person room to explain a decision. It names something specific, so the answer has to contain real detail. And it can be answered from evidence, so you are not left inventing. If a question fails any of those three tests, rewrite it.

Before you write anything, list five to eight moments in the figure's life: a childhood influence, a turning point, a success, a failure, a quarrel, a choice that cost them something. Each moment becomes one main question.

Open and closed questions: when to use each

A closed question has a short right answer: a year, a yes or a no. An open question asks for explanation. Interviews run on open questions. Closed questions still have one use: a quick fact to set up the next open question.

ClosedOpen
Were you born in Warsaw?What did growing up in Warsaw under Russian rule teach you about learning?
Did you meet Charles Babbage?What did you see in Babbage's machine the first time you watched it work in 1833?
Did you win the election of 1860?Why did you think you could win in 1860 when you had lost the Senate race in 1858?
Was your telescope powerful?What did you see on Jupiter in January 1610 that made you rethink the heavens?

Open questions usually start with how, why, what was it like, what did you mean, or what would you say to. Questions that start with did, were, was and is are usually closed.

Weak and strong questions, side by side

Weak questionWhy it is weakStronger version
Tell me about your life.Too broad; the answer becomes a list of datesWhat was the hardest year of your life, and how did you get through it?
Did you like maths?Closed, and too easyYour mother had you tutored in mathematics from childhood. Why do you think she chose that for you?
Why did you free the slaves?Oversimplified, and ignores the recordIn August 1862 you wrote to Horace Greeley that saving the Union came first. Why did you issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation a month later?
Were you sad when Pierre died?Closed, and leads the answerHow did you keep working after Pierre's death in 1906, and why did you take over his teaching post?
What do you think of women voting today?Anachronism: she died in 1818In March 1776 you asked John to remember the ladies. What did you hope the new laws would change?
Are you the first computer programmer?Uses a modern label she never heardIn your Note G you set out steps for the Engine to calculate Bernoulli numbers. Why did you choose that example?

Follow-up questions turn answers into an interview

A list of main questions reads like a quiz. Follow-ups make it sound like two people talking. Prepare one for each main question, chosen from these five types:

  • Why? Why did you decide that, rather than the other choice?
  • Example: Can you tell me about a particular day when that happened?
  • Consequence: What happened next, and did you expect it?
  • Feeling: How did you feel when the news reached you?
  • Challenge: Some people at the time said you were wrong. What would you say to them?

The challenge follow-up is the most useful in a graded project, because it shows you know there was a debate. For Lincoln, critics in 1862 included abolitionists who said he was too slow and Northern Democrats who said emancipation went too far. A question that names both shows real research.

Avoiding anachronism: what the figure could not know

An anachronism is anything placed in the wrong time. In an interview it is usually a question about events after the figure died, or one that uses modern words or ideas. These are the traps students fall into most often:

  • Events after death. Lincoln died on 15 April 1865, before the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified in December 1865. Ask him why he pushed it through the House in January 1865, not how it felt to see it ratified.
  • Their own reputation. Shakespeare died in 1616. The First Folio of his plays came out in 1623. He cannot tell you what he thought of it.
  • Later discoveries. Galileo died in January 1642, about a year before Newton was born. Do not ask him about Newton's law of gravity.
  • Modern words. In Ada Lovelace's time, a computer was a person who did calculations. Ask about the Analytical Engine, in her words.
  • Modern values used as a trap. You can ask about views that look wrong today, but frame them in the figure's time: what did you believe, and why?

If your project is set at a particular moment (Marie Curie in 1903, say), the figure also cannot know the rest of their own life. Decide the date first and check each question against it.

Build questions from the evidence, not the other way round

Write a question only when you know where its answer is. Next to each question, note the source: the letter, the speech, the chapter of an autobiography, or the page of a biography. A question with no source attached will produce an answer you have to invent.

Primary sources give you the best questions, because they show what the person cared about in their own words. When Abigail Adams wrote to John on 31 March 1776, she gave you a ready-made question:

“Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could.”
Abigail Adams to John Adams, 31 March 1776, Adams Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society

A strong question asks her what she meant by it, and whether she expected John to listen. (He replied on 14 April 1776 that he could not help laughing, which gives you a follow-up.)

A complete question set: Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace (born 10 December 1815, died 27 November 1852) is a good test case because the famous claims about her are debated, so careful questions matter.

  1. Your parents separated when you were a few weeks old. How did that shape the way you were raised?
  2. What drew you to mathematics, and who taught you? (Augustus De Morgan and Mary Somerville, by letter and in person.)
  3. What did you think when you first saw Babbage's Difference Engine working in 1833?
  4. Why did you translate Luigi Menabrea's article on the Analytical Engine, and why are your Notes longer than the article?
  5. What did you mean when you compared the Engine to the Jacquard loom?
  6. You suggested the Engine might compose music. What did you mean by that?
  7. Why did you choose the Bernoulli numbers for Note G?
  8. You wrote that the Engine has no pretensions to originate anything. Why did you think that?
  9. You signed your Notes A.A.L. rather than your full name. Why?
  10. What did you hope people would do with the Engine in the future?

Ada's own words answer question 5:

“We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.”
Ada Lovelace, Notes by the Translator, Note A, in Taylor's Scientific Memoirs, 1843

Test your questions before you use them

  • Can each question be answered in more than one sentence?
  • Does each question name a date, place, person or document?
  • Is there a source for every answer?
  • Could the figure know about everything you mention?
  • Do the questions follow the life in order, with the hardest one near the end?
  • Have you asked at least one question about a failure, a doubt or a disagreement?

A quick way to test them is to ask them out loud. Try your list by voice with an AI recreation on Yuga and notice which questions get long, specific answers and which fall flat. Remember that the recreation is not the person and can be wrong: check what it says against the sources before you use any of it. When your list is ready, the interview project guide covers the answers, the rubric and citations.

Questions people ask

How do you write good interview questions for a historical figure?
Make each question open (how, why, what was it like), specific (name a date, person or document) and possible (about things the figure could know before they died). Write one main question for each stage of the life, add a follow-up to each, and note the source that holds each answer before you keep it.
What is an example of an open question for a historical figure?
Instead of asking Galileo whether his telescope was powerful, ask what he saw on Jupiter in January 1610 that made him rethink the heavens. The answer has to explain his observations of four moons and why they mattered, which shows real knowledge rather than a yes or no.
What is an anachronism in an interview project?
Anything placed in the wrong time: asking a figure about events after their death, using modern words they never knew, or expecting them to know their own later reputation. Lincoln cannot discuss the telephone, and Shakespeare cannot comment on the First Folio, which was printed in 1623, seven years after he died.
How many questions should I prepare?
For a written interview, ten to fifteen main questions, each with one follow-up you may or may not use. For a live interview of four to six minutes, six to eight. It is better to have fewer questions with full, sourced answers than many with thin ones.

Sources