How to Cite an Interview, Including Personal Conversations

An interview you recorded privately does not become a published video because you saved an audio file. Conversely, a recording in an accessible archive should not be treated as an unverifiable conversation if readers can consult it.

APA’s personal communication guidance applies when readers cannot retrieve the work. Such material is cited in the text rather than included in the reference list. Identify the communicator and give as precise a date as you can establish.

({Initials} {Surname}, personal communication, {Month Day, Year})

This is a field pattern, not an account of a real interview. Place the citation beside the claim it supports and make the speaker’s role clear in your sentence. Do not invent a date you did not record or present your recollection as an exact quotation.

Before relying on an unrecoverable conversation, look for a published source that supports the point. A private statement may be relevant to your argument, but it gives readers fewer ways to inspect the evidence. If a public recording exists, cite that source in its actual format.

For an interview published as an article, collect the article’s credited author, date, title, publication and DOI or URL. For a podcast, collect the episode credits and release details. The interviewee’s name can appear prominently in your prose without automatically replacing the credited author of the publication.

Use the podcast citation guide when the interview is part of an episode. For other containers, use the APA guide and the relevant source pattern. Keep your quotation’s page or timestamp attached to the passage in your notes.

MLA does not simply copy APA’s reference list exclusion. The MLA’s current guidance for an interview you recorded describes a global note or an entry for the interview itself when the recording is private. It distinguishes that case from a recording available online.

{Interviewee surname}, {First name}. Interview. Conducted by {Interviewer name}, {Day Month Year}.

If the interview is published online, include the publication or recording’s container and location. When quoting a public recording, use the relevant timestamp. Do not supply private recording timestamps as if a reader could open an inaccessible file and check them.

If several interviews inform a long paper, decide early how you will distinguish them. Consistent dates, names and notes make the documentation usable. Ask your instructor or editor which permitted approach best suits the project rather than mixing multiple patterns without explanation.

The Chicago notes and bibliography examples generally organize published interview examples under the interviewee and identify the interviewer. Follow the pattern for the actual container, including the program or publication and its date.

Private interviews and personal correspondence require different treatment from a newspaper article. Check the required Chicago system and your publication’s instructions before deciding whether a note, a reference list entry or another explanation is appropriate. Keep the interview date and context in your working notes even when some of that information does not appear in the final reference.

For a published recording in notes and bibliography, the Austin Peay State University Chicago 18 interview guide identifies both participants’ roles:

{Note number}. {Interviewee full name}, “{Interview Title},” interview by {Interviewer name}, {Program or Publication}, {Publisher or Platform}, {Month Day, Year}, {Format}, {Time}, {URL}.

Adapt the container and location to the actual publication. A private conversation should not be given a public URL or recording details it does not have.

APA separately addresses quotations from research participants. Participant statements are part of the study’s data, not a collection of personal communication references. Explain how the interviews were conducted and present quotations within the study’s reporting conventions.

Use the consent and confidentiality arrangements that apply to the research. Do not add a participant’s full identity to a citation just because an ordinary private interview pattern asks for a name. A source management tool cannot decide what a study is permitted to disclose.

Create a working note with the interview’s date, medium, participants, publication status and the passage you plan to use. Distinguish an exact quotation from a paraphrase. If you have a recording, replay the relevant section; if you only have notes, keep their limits visible while drafting.

For public interviews, save the source record in Citation and connect it to the relevant passage. For private material, avoid uploading confidential notes unless that use is authorized. The adding sources guide explains source entry, while your course, publisher or research protocol determines what may be included.

Before submission, check that every reference promises only the access it actually provides. A reader should be able to tell whether the evidence is a retrievable publication, a private communication or data collected for your own research.