How did you conduct the interviews? How did you edit them?

The interview process for the Campus Living Wage Project involved a free-form conversation, including typical interruptions, tangents, and the views of the interviewer. The interviews included many discussions about the Living Wage that were not included here for various reasons: redundant, boring, or unspecific.

More importantly, the interviews shouldn't be read as monologues. Different people were asked different questions (some more difficult than others) and they shouldn't be either read as essays or compared directly with one another.

In addition, questions included in these transcriptions were never directly stated. Instead, they are a compilation of the set of questions that the interviewer asked on the topic. When possible, the edited transcripts were sent to interviewees to make sure they adequately captured the meaning of the interview. The actual questioning procedure did not progress in an organized fashion as the text may first suggest--but it certainly makes it easier to read.

The answers have been edited for fixing broken sentences, expunging (some) expletives, and creating a flowing narrative where broken sentences, questions, and digressions distracted from their stories.