Keep a speaker’s words distinct from your notes

An oral account contains a speaker's words, your questions and your later interpretation. Keep those layers separate while the conversation is still recent.

Ask permission before recording and agree on how the material may be used or shared. Follow applicable law and protect personal information. Record the date, participants and circumstances, including whether the account was prompted by a photograph or object. Keep the original recording securely if consent and the project permit it.

Mark the kind of note

Use quotation marks only for wording you can verify. Label a summary as a summary and your own observation as your note. If you missed a word, indicate the uncertainty rather than supplying a plausible phrase. A clean transcript should not create a confidence the recording does not support.

Keep names and dates open to checking against other records. Memory can contribute valuable context without settling every chronological question. If the speaker later corrects something, preserve the correction and its date.

Before publication, confirm the agreed permissions and consider whether the context changes the meaning of a short quotation. The aim is not a tidier version of the speaker. It is a record that respects what they said and lets another person distinguish that account from the explanation you build around it.