The prompt
Score 10 of 10, Excellent
Use it when You recorded an interview and want a readable Q&A for a newsletter or blog that keeps the person's words and meaning intact.
- {{publication}}
- {{transcript}}
- {{interviewee}}
- {{interviewer}}
- {{angle}}
- {{length}}
- {{style}}
Full prompt and why it works
Prompt
Edit the interview transcript below into a Q&A article for {{publication}}, so that readers get a clear, readable conversation in the interviewee's own words, and the interviewee can approve it knowing nothing was put in their mouth. A transcript is full of false starts, filler and tangents; a Q&A keeps the voice and the meaning while cutting what a reader does not need. The transcript: """ {{transcript}} """ Who was interviewed, and how they should be named and described: {{interviewee}} Who asked the questions: {{interviewer}} The angle or main topic of the piece: {{angle}} Target length: {{length}} House style (how questions are labeled, use of initials, headline style): {{style}} Edit it like this: 1. A headline, and an introduction of 60 to 100 words that says who the person is and why we spoke to them, using only facts from the transcript and the description above. 2. The Q&A: questions in bold, answers in plain text. Choose the questions that serve the angle, in the order that reads best, which may differ from the order asked. 3. In the answers, cut filler words, false starts, repetition and off-topic tangents. You may tighten a question for clarity. Join passages from different parts of the interview only where they answer the same question, and mark each join with [...]. 4. Where condensing an answer means the wording is partly yours, put your words in square brackets. For example, "We [moved the whole team into one office] that spring" if they said "we put everybody, the whole team, into the one office, that was in the spring". That example shows the form only. 5. After the article, a list of every join and every bracketed change, with the original transcript wording, so the interviewee can check them. Keep to {{length}}. The answers should still sound like the person speaking: keep their phrasing, their word choices and their way of explaining, even where it is informal. Do not add words, facts, opinions or examples the interviewee did not say, do not change the meaning of an answer, and do not make them sound more certain, more polished or more critical than they were. Leave out anything they said was off the record. If a passage is marked inaudible or unclear, leave it out or keep the [inaudible] mark; do not guess what was said. End with the line: "Send to the interviewee for approval before publishing."
Variables
- {{publication}}
- Where it will run, for example "our customer newsletter" or "the company blog".
- {{transcript}}
- The full transcript, with speakers labeled and any inaudible passages marked.
- {{interviewee}}
- Their name and how to describe them, for example "[name], head of logistics at a customer company".
- {{interviewer}}
- Who asked the questions, for example "our editor".
- {{angle}}
- The main topic, for example "how they cut delivery times".
- {{length}}
- For example "800 to 1,000 words".
- {{style}}
- Your house style for Q&As, or "none".
Why it works
- What to avoid. Nothing the interviewee did not say is added, and no answer is made more certain or more polished than it was spoken.
- An example. A sample bracketed edit shows exactly how condensed wording is marked, so the reader and the interviewee can see where the editor's words begin.
- If unsure. Inaudible passages are left out or kept marked, never guessed, and every join and bracket is listed for the interviewee's approval.