Citation rules for interviews depend on who conducted the interview and whether it is published. Always check your instructor’s or journal’s requirements.
APA 7th edition
- Interviews you conducted as part of your research are data, not sources. Describe them in your method section and quote participants without a reference list entry.
- Personal communications, such as an informal interview with an expert that others cannot retrieve, are cited only in the text, for example (J. Rivera, personal communication, March 3, 2026), with no reference list entry.
- Published interviews (in a magazine, podcast or video) are cited by the format they appear in, such as an article or a podcast episode.
MLA 9th edition
MLA lists an interview under the name of the person interviewed. A common MLA 9 form for an interview you conducted is: Rivera, Jordan. Interview. Conducted by Alex Kim, 3 Mar. 2026. Some schools prefer the shorter form Rivera, Jordan. Personal interview. 3 Mar. 2026, so check which your instructor uses. For a published interview, cite it like the source that carries it, with the interviewer named after the title.
Quoting from a transcript
- Quote exactly. Use clean verbatim only if your method allows it.
- Include a timestamp when your field expects one, so readers or reviewers can locate the passage.
- Keep the recording until your work is accepted, so you can verify any quote.
Transcribela adds timestamps to every line and lets you copy quotes with their timestamps from the Clips tab.
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