Questions?
Comments?

Last updated on
8 September, 2007

Return to:

Researching and Interviewing
with Stephen Morrill

REGISTRATION:

COST, LENGTH, PREREQUISITES:

No prerequisites.

Standard course: $150 / 6 weeks. Click here to register

Extended course: $188 / 12 weeks. Click here to register
Extended course gives you two weeks to do each lesson but contains NO additional material.

For questions about this COURSE, e-mail Steve Morrill at

This course is useful to fiction and nonfiction writers alike.

I teach five course modules.. This is the research/interviews course, a how-to in finding data and experts to support your writing.

Like my other courses, this one centers upon extensive written materials in a private library. Students download these at their convenience and interact with me via e-mail.

Writers must be part private detective, part psychologist, part university professor, part lawyer. They have to be able to find information, locate and interview experts, know how to apply the rules of rigorous scholarship to their findings, and know how to stay out of legal trouble while doing all this. Writers used to hang out in public libraries, gathering information and cobwebs alike. Today they still do that but also cruise the internet and world wide web, even as their fax machines hum with incoming data from government and private sources. This course will discuss all of this and give you some ideas of where to get started on your own projects.

The class consists of two parts. Each week I upload, to our private library, materials you should read before the next week. Each week you also receive an assignment to carry out before the next class.

Week 1:
What do editors want from you?
Balancing editors' wishes against the time and money you wish to spend.
How much research is necessary? How much is unnecessary?
Primary versus Secondary research.
Think first. Make a plan. And then start.
Where to look for data.
Where to look for experts.
Homework: Write out an idea you wish to pursue, and a plan to do so. Send to the instructor for critique.

Week 2:
Human psychology 101--how to deal with experts.
Scholarship. How to check your facts--and the need to do so.
How to record your information.
Balance your research in several ways.
Homework: Visit your public library and report to the instructor what you found of use to you.

Week 3:
Interviews: scheduling them, preparing for them, conducting them, doing the paperwork afterwards.
Homework: Perform a practice (or real) interview following the guidelines and report to the instructor.

Week 4:
Research on the internet/web.
Follow-up research and fact-checking
Preparing a list for the magazine's or publisher's fact-checkers.
Legalities.
Miscellaneous tips.
Homework: Run an internet/web search on your topic. Report back to the instructor.

Stephen Morrill has been freelancing full-time since 1984. During that time he has written more than 1000 articles for national and local magazines and for newspapers. Nationally, his work has appeared in such magazines as Horizon, World Wide Shipper, The Robb Report, Vista, The New York Times Magazine, and Business Age. In Florida his work has appeared in Changing Homes, Florida Business, Southern Homes, and in a variety of city magazines and local newspapers.

For ten years he wrote a biweekly column about maritime trade for Florida Shipper magazine and he has written about maritime shipping for other trade publications. As a Reuters News Agency correspondent for the west coast of Florida, his writing has been used by newspapers, radio and television around the world.

In addition to general-interest articles, Steve has written extensively about wine, humor, international shipping and trade, business and finance, architecture and the outdoors, and military affairs. He was the founding editor of Know Tampa Bay, a 25,000-circulation quarterly relocation guide to the Tampa Bay area. Steve has been honored by the Florida Magazine Association for his short humor and by the Florida Association of the American Institute of Architects for his writing about architecture. Steve is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

In addition to his ongoing magazine assignments and the occasional brochure or other non-magazine work, Steve wrote St. Petersburg: City in the Sun, a history of St. Petersburg, Florida and a ghost written history of Pan American-Grace Airways, Flying the Andes. He's working on two more books: a mystery (almost finished) and a handbook of businesslike freelance writing practices.