The first step in figuring out how to cite an interview is to figure out what kind of interview it is. Is the interview something that some other person can go read or listen to for themselves, or was it just a conversation you had with someone for research purposes? That one decision will pretty much dictate the whole citation process. A published interview is something that has a clear trail, a paper trail, so to speak, a way for readers to follow and see where the information came from. On the other hand, a personal interview is just a private little chat you had, something that’s stuck in your head or notes somewhere, and that’s exactly how you’ll cite it.
Quick Tip: If your reader can Google it, it’s a published interview. If only you have access, it’s a personal interview or what’s known as a personal communication.
Citing Published Interviews: The Public Record
When an interview shows up in a newspaper or as a podcast or YouTube video, it’s considered a published interview. Your job is to create a little road sign that points the reader to where they can find that interview, so gather these details before you start:
- Interviewer’s name
- Interviewee’s name
- Interview or article title
- Publication or website name
- Publication date
- URL or page numbers
The different citation styles may arrange all this information in slightly different ways, but the basic stuff you need to include stays the same.
Manually arranging these details can be tedious, especially when you’re juggling multiple sources. Using a free citation generator can save a ton of time and help you avoid small but costly errors in your reference list. Just plug in the information, and it will structure the citation in the correct format for you.
Let’s take a look at how the major citation styles handle published interviews in a side-by-side comparison. Suppose we’re citing an interview that Jane Doe gave to John Smith for The Guardian newspaper.
| Style | Works Cited / Reference List Format | In-Text Citation Example |
|---|---|---|
| MLA 9 | Doe, Jane. “Title of Interview.” Interview by John Smith. Name of Publication, Day Month Year, URL. (Note: The interviewee is in the author position). |
(Doe) |
| APA 7 | Smith, J. (Year, Month Day). Title of interview article. Name of Publication. URL. (Note: The interviewer is in the author position). |
(Smith, Year) |
| Chicago 17 (Notes-Bibliography) | Doe, Jane. “Title of Interview.” Interview by John Smith. Name of Publication, Month Day, Year. URL. (Note: The interviewee is in the author position. See this Chicago-style guide to interview citations for more examples). |
1 Jane Doe, “Title of Interview,”… |
When you’re writing about the interview, you have to make it clear who’s saying what, so you’ll have to point to either the interviewer or the interviewee in your in-text citations, depending on the citation style you’re using. That can make for a bit of a wrinkle in your prose, but it’s worth it to avoid confusion for your readers.
| Style | In-Text Template | Example |
|---|---|---|
| MLA 9 | (Interviewee’s Last Name) | Jane Doe stated that her next novel would explore “the frontiers of artificial consciousness” (Doe). |
| APA 7 | (Interviewer’s Last Name, Year) | Jane Doe stated that her next novel would explore “the frontiers of artificial consciousness” (Smith, 2023). |
| Chicago 17 | Superscript note number, keyed to a full note | Jane Doe stated that her next novel would explore “the frontiers of artificial consciousness.”1 |
That same logic holds true for any interview that got published somewhere someone can go and find it, like a podcast or video. In that case, you’ll just cite the podcast or video it’s on. The main thing is to get that information out there so that readers can find the original source.
Podcast Interview Example (MLA):
Doe, Jane. Interview by John Smith. The Daily Show Podcast, episode 112, 15 Mar. 2024, www.example.com/episode-112.
A Deeper Look: The Ethics of Quoting
Before you even think about how to cite an interview, especially a personal interview, you must consider the ethics of your work. Did you get permission? I remember the first time I conducted an interview for a research project; my hands were shaking, but the person was so generous with their story, and I felt a huge responsibility to represent their words accurately. This starts with consent. For a class paper, verbal consent might be enough. For a thesis or published work, you absolutely need written consent. This document should clarify how you’ll use their information and whether they will be identified or remain anonymous. This isn’t just about rules, it’s about respecting the person who gave you their time and their story. The person interviewed is not just a data point.
Furthermore, how much can you clean up a quote? The Chicago Manual of Style offers excellent guidance on this. A note like “This interview has been edited for length and clarity” gives you leeway to remove filler words (“um,” “like”) for readability. But, you should never alter the fundamental meaning. Using brackets [ ] to add a clarifying word or ellipses (…) to show omitted text are the standard tools for making minor, transparent edits to a verbatim transcript. Your goal is fidelity to the interviewee’s original intent. For tips on weaving these direct quotes smoothly into your own sentences, see our guide on how to introduce quotations.
Handling Personal Interviews & Communications
Now we hit the area where the interviews aren’t so easily found. There are personal interviews – that’s where you go out and have a conversation with someone, either in person, by email, or even by text messages. Since your readers can’t go and find that interview, most citation styles treat it like a personal communication. And one big implication of that is that you usually don’t put it in that final list of references at the end of your paper. Instead, you just cite it right in the text.
Think of the citation like a map. For a published interview, the map shows you where to find the interview – at a library or on a website. For a personal interview, the map is a dead end for the reader, so the map itself (the in-text citation) has to give them all the information they need. That’s actually a key principle of the APA style guide, which does a great job of laying out how to handle personal communications.
According to the official Personal Communications guide for APA Style, the in-text citation should include the interviewee’s initials and last name, the phrase “personal communication,” and the exact date the communication occurred.
Example of a personal interview citation:
Dr. Evelyn Reed confirmed that the research was still in its preliminary stages (E. Reed, personal communication, October 5, 2024).
But then there are those edge cases where an interview doesn’t quite fit into the “published” or “private” box, like when you come across an unpublished interview transcript in a digital archive or a university library’s special collections. In those cases, you’ll want to treat it like a document in an archive – the location of the archive is then a key part of the citation, so readers know where to go to find the interview.
A note on MLA: The MLA style is a bit of an outlier here. The Modern Language Association suggests that if you conduct a formal interview as part of your research, you should include it in your Works Cited list. The argument is that the interview is a core piece of your research, even if unpublished. You can find more details on the MLA’s official site.
From Conversation to Text: The Art of Transcription
One of the most overlooked parts of using personal interviews is the act of transcription. The low hum of the recorder on the table is one thing; a clean, usable text is another. Deciding how to handle verbal tics, false starts, and regional dialects is a form of interpretation. Will you capture every single stutter and “uh-huh”? Or will you produce a cleaner, more readable text? There’s no single right answer, but your choice should be deliberate. A verbatim transcript is best for linguistic analysis, while a slightly cleaned-up version is better for quoting in a standard academic paper. If you plan to paraphrase parts of the transcript rather than quote it directly, see our guide on how to paraphrase without losing the speaker’s meaning. This is a crucial step in the writing process when dealing with interviews.
If you promise your interviewee anonymity, you must maintain it at every stage. This means creating pseudonyms and ensuring no identifying details appear in your quotes or descriptions. When you cite the interview, you would use the pseudonym in your in-text citation.
Example with an anonymous interviewee:
One nurse, identified as “Participant B,” described the hospital’s atmosphere as “persistently stressful” (Participant B, personal communication, May 30, 2024).
Advanced Scenarios and Gray Areas
What happens when an interview doesn’t fit neatly into the “published” or “personal” box? For instance, you might find an unpublished interview transcript in a digital archive or a university’s special collections. In this case, you should cite it like an archived document. The location of the archive becomes a key piece of the citation, as it provides the retrieval path for your reader. Your goal is to provide enough information for someone else to find the exact unpublished document you did.
Here’s the general format for an archived interview:
Reference List Example (APA Format):
O’Connor, F. (1960). Interview on writing [Transcript]. The Flannery O’Connor Collection, Georgia College & State University, Milledgeville, GA, United States.
This example shows how the citation is used to give a specific address, like a location, so that readers can actually find the interview itself. This is how you handle interviews that are sort of stuck in limbo between being public and private.
Knowing how to cite an interview correctly is more than a mechanical task. It is an act of academic honesty, giving credit to the source of your information and providing a clear trail for your readers to follow. Whether you are dealing with a widely published interview or a private personal communication, the principles of clarity and retrievability should always guide your citation practice. If you have more specific citation questions about unique sources, the resources on this Citation Questions page can offer further guidance. If you’re writing an essay built around the interview itself rather than just citing it, our interview essay guide covers that process separately. The key is to be consistent and clear in your writing and your citations.
How Do You Cite a Personal Interview in MLA, APA, or Chicago?
Once you’ve decided an interview counts as personal communication rather than a published source, the three major styles diverge on whether it belongs in your reference list at all. Here’s how the in-text citation and the Works Cited or reference entry compare, MLA first since it’s the outlier.
| Style | In-Text Citation | Works Cited / Reference Entry |
|---|---|---|
| MLA 9 | (Doe) | Doe, Jane. Personal interview. 15 Mar. 2024. |
| APA 7 | (J. Doe, personal communication, March 15, 2024) | Not included — cited in-text only, per APA’s personal communications guidance. |
| Chicago 17 | Jane Doe, interview by the author, March 15, 2024. | Not included — cited in a note only, similar to APA’s approach. |
Citing an Unpublished Interview by Email, Phone, or In Person (MLA Format)
MLA doesn’t require you to specify the interview type in the in-text citation, but it does ask for it in the Works Cited entry:
| Interview Type | MLA Works Cited Format |
|---|---|
| In-person | Doe, Jane. Personal interview. 15 Mar. 2024. |
| Telephone | Doe, Jane. Telephone interview. 15 Mar. 2024. |
| Doe, Jane. Email interview. 15 Mar. 2024. |
Plug these details into our MLA citation generator to format the entry automatically once you know the interview type and date.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should I treat an interview as personal communication instead of a Works Cited entry?
Treat an interview as personal communication when your reader has no way to access it themselves, such as a private conversation, email, or phone call you conducted for research. APA and Chicago cite personal communications in-text only and leave them out of the reference list or bibliography. MLA is the exception: it asks you to include even personal interviews in your Works Cited list.
How do you cite a personal interview in MLA?
List the interviewee as the author, followed by the interview type and date: Doe, Jane. Personal interview. 15 Mar. 2024. Cite it in-text with just the interviewee’s last name, like (Doe), since MLA doesn’t use in-text dates or page numbers for interviews.
How do I cite an interview in MLA in-text?
MLA in-text citations for interviews use only the interviewee’s last name in parentheses, such as (Doe), or you can name them in your own sentence and skip the parenthetical entirely. This applies to both published and personal interviews, since MLA treats the interviewee as the author in both cases.
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Terry is a Chicago-based writer and editor who creates practical, student-friendly guides on essay writing, research, and citation styles (APA, MLA, and Chicago). He’s spent 15+ years editing educational content and building clear examples that help readers apply rules without guessing. When he’s not revising drafts, he’s usually turning messy notes into clean outlines and hunting down the one detail everyone skips.