How you cite an interview transcript depends on where the interview lives. A published interview is cited as the article, broadcast or book that carries it. An oral history in an archive, or a transcript deposited in a data archive, gets a reference to that collection. Your own research interviews are data. A conversation nobody else can hear is a personal communication.
EdCitation publishes this guide. We read each rule at its publisher in September 2026, APA Style and NLM's Citing Medicine through archived copies because the live sites answered with a bot check. Cite Them Right is a subscription site we could not open, so Harvard comes from university templates that follow it.
We ran EdCitation's free Cite a source and Verify references on real published and archived interviews, and quote what came back, faults included.
What kind of interview are you citing?
Five kinds:
- Published: in a journal, newspaper, book or broadcast.
- Archived: an oral history held by a library or archive.
- Deposited: transcripts in a data archive such as the UK Data Service, usually with a DOI.
- Your own research interviews, with participants you recruited.
- Personal communications: an email, call or conversation nobody else can reach.
APA sorts these by whether a reader can recover the source (American Psychological Association, 2022). Recoverable ones get a reference entry; unrecoverable ones do not.
How do you cite a published interview?
As the source you read or heard it in. The styles disagree on one thing: whose name goes first.
APA 7: the publication's author
APA has no interview template: use the one for the article, episode or book that carries it, as the University of Auckland (2026) guide also reads the manual. The author is whoever the publication names. MLA's own example, an interview with Orhan Pamuk in PMLA, is recorded by Crossref under the interviewer, so in APA it becomes:
Mirze, Z. E. (2008). Implementing disform: An interview with Orhan Pamuk. PMLA, 123(1), 176–180. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2008.123.1.176
In the text, make clear whose words you quote: Pamuk told Mirze (2008) that…
MLA 9: the interviewee
MLA treats the person interviewed as the author and adds the interviewer as "Interview conducted by" after the title (Modern Language Association, 2016). Its own entry for the same interview:
Pamuk, Orhan. "Implementing Disform: An Interview with Orhan Pamuk." Interview conducted by Z. Esra Mirze. PMLA, vol. 123, no. 1, Jan. 2008, pp. 176–80.
Chicago author-date: the interviewee
Chicago also files interviews under the interviewee. Its author-date sample is a real radio interview: Buolamwini, then the title, then "Interview by Tonya Mosley", the programme Fresh Air, NPR, the date, and "Audio, 37:58" (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-a). Following that pattern for the PMLA interview:
Pamuk, Orhan. 2008. "Implementing Disform: An Interview with Orhan Pamuk." Interview by Z. Esra Mirze. PMLA 123 (1): 176–80. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2008.123.1.176.
Harvard: the interviewee, with "Interviewed by"
Robert Gordon University Library (2026), whose templates follow Cite Them Right, puts the interviewee first and the interviewer after "Interviewed by … for" the newspaper, broadcast or site. Following its online interview template for the NPR interview:
Buolamwini, J. (2023) 'If you have a face, you have a place in the conversation about AI,' expert says. Interviewed by Tonya Mosley for Fresh Air, 28 November. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2023/11/28/1215529902/unmasking-ai-facial-recognition-technology-joy-buolamwini (Accessed: 27 September 2026).
IEEE and Vancouver: as the article
Neither the IEEE guide nor Citing Medicine has an interview template: cite the article under its byline.
How do you cite an oral history interview in an archive?
With a reference to the collection that holds it, naming the interviewee as author. APA's page on archival sources gives two real examples (American Psychological Association, n.d.-a):
Smith, M. B. (1989, August 12). Interview by C. A. Kiesler [Tape recording]. President's Oral History Project, American Psychological Association, APA Archives, Washington, DC, United States.
The second, a 1973 transcript with no recording, puts the interviewer inside the italic title, after a slash. Give as much box, file or volume detail as a reader needs.
Chicago wants both names, the date or place, and where a transcript or recording can be found (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-b). Its example is a note; our author-date adaptation:
Spock, Benjamin. 1974. Interview by Milton J. E. Senn. November 20. Interview 67A, transcript. Senn Oral History Collection, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD.
For an oral history reprinted in a book, MLA cites the book, with the interviewee as author; we found no MLA post on one read in an archive. Citing Medicine says archived unpublished material can usually go in a reference list (Patrias, 2007). We read nothing from Cite Them Right or IEEE on archives.
How do you cite a transcript in a data archive like the UK Data Service?
Cite the data collection, with its edition and DOI. APA puts the identifier and version in parentheses and "[Data set]" after the italic title (American Psychological Association, n.d.-b).
A real example: Family Life and Work Experience Before 1918, 1870-1973, known as The Edwardians, holds 453 life-story interviews from the late 1960s and early 1970s, which DataCite's record calls the first national oral history project in the UK (Lummis & Thompson, 2009). The UK Data Service's catalogue gives its own citation:
Lummis, T., Thompson, P. (2009). Family Life and Work Experience Before 1918, 1870-1973. [data collection]. 7th Edition. UK Data Service. SN: 2000, DOI: http://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-2000-1
In APA 7:
Lummis, T., & Thompson, P. (2009). Family life and work experience before 1918, 1870–1973 (SN 2000; 7th ed.) [Data set]. UK Data Service. https://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-2000-1
To quote one interview, APA's rule for letters in one collection is the model: the collection goes in the list, and the in-text citation adds which item, for example (Lummis & Thompson, 2009, interview [number]). IEEE's current guide puts the date after the authors for a data set: author, date, "title," source, then the DOI (IEEE, 2025).
How do you cite your own interviews in a dissertation?
In APA, you do not cite them at all. Quotations from your research participants are part of your own research: no reference entry, no personal communication citation, and the text says the words come from participants (American Psychological Association, n.d.-c). A typical sentence names a pseudonym or code and a relevant detail: One ward manager (P7) described the rota as "…".
MLA, Chicago and Harvard name the interviewee
MLA gives an entry such as "Clarke, Allison. Interview. Conducted by Joseph Lee, 5 August 2021.", or a single note saying all quotations from a person come from your interview on a stated date (Modern Language Association, 2025). For an interviewee who asked to stay anonymous, MLA drops the works-cited entry and gives the details in an endnote (Modern Language Association, 2018). Harvard templates list a named interview you conducted, "Interviewed by" you with the date, while an anonymous one has no entry at all: "Interviewee A (see annex A) stated that…" points to the transcript in your appendix (Robert Gordon University Library, 2026). Chicago prefers the details in your sentence.
Ethics comes before format
Your consent forms decide what you may print. APA says to keep the anonymity promised at consent, with pseudonyms, blurred detail or aggregate reporting, and to protect documents that could name your site. Cambridge's history and philosophy of science department notes that anonymity is necessary in sociology and anthropology but that some historical research needs named people, so its consent forms can offer anonymity as an option (University of Cambridge, n.d.). A named citation is only possible if the participant agreed to be named. How to choose and disguise quotations is in writing up qualitative findings; approval itself is in research ethics approval.
What is a personal communication, and which styles list one?
An interview, email, call or unrecorded lecture that no reader can retrieve. APA cites it in the text only, with initials, surname and exact date, as in its example (T. Nguyen, personal communication, February 24, 2020), and never in the reference list (American Psychological Association, 2022). A letter held in an archive is archival material instead. Our guide to APA 7 in-text citations covers the forms.
Not every style agrees:
- Chicago cites personal communications in the text and rarely lists them, as in (Sam Gomez, Facebook direct message to author, August 1, 2024).
- Vancouver: NLM says most authorities put them in the running text, marked as unreferenced (Patrias, 2007), and the ICMJE (2026) recommendations say to avoid them unless essential, naming the person and date in parentheses, with written permission for scientific articles.
- IEEE lists them: "A. Harrison, private communication, May 1995." (IEEE, 2025).
- Harvard varies. Robert Gordon's Cite Them Right templates list a conversation, as in "Kirk, J. (2024) Telephone conversation with Miranda Jones, 25 January."; De Montfort University's answer says to keep them out of the list because they cannot be traced. Ask your module leader.
How do the styles compare?
For the three styles asked about most:
| Kind of interview | APA 7 | MLA 9 | Harvard | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Published | Source's template, under its byline | Interviewee first, "Interview conducted by" | Interviewee first, "Interviewed by … for" | Pamuk in PMLA, 2008 |
| Archived oral history | Interviewee as author, "Interview by", collection | Book or source you found it in | Not read at source | Smith, APA Archives, 1989 |
| Deposited transcripts | Data set: edition, DOI, [Data set] | Not read at source | Not read at source | The Edwardians, SN 2000 |
| Your own participants | Quoted as data, no entry | Entry, global note, or endnote if anonymous | Entry if named; "Interviewee A", no entry, if anonymous | Your pseudonym or code |
| Personal communication | Text only | Entry as "Interview" | Listed in Robert Gordon's templates | (T. Nguyen, personal communication, February 24, 2020) |
| Any with a DOI or web address | Built by Cite a source | Built, then author moved | Built, then "Interviewed by" added | Checked by Verify references |
How do you cite an interview, step by step?
In this order, whatever the style:
- Decide which of the five kinds it is, from where you read or heard it.
- For your own participants in APA, stop: quote them as data, under the names your consent forms allow.
- For anything published or deposited, paste the DOI or web address into EdCitation's Cite a source and choose the style.
- Check whose name is first. APA follows the byline; MLA, Chicago and Harvard put the interviewee first and the interviewer after "Interview by" or its equivalent.
- Add what a record will not hold: the programme name, the running time, the collection, box or interview number.
- Leave personal communications out of an APA or Chicago list; list them only where your Harvard version or IEEE does.
- Run the list through Verify references; it marks a personal communication as not checked and says it belongs in the text only.
What does EdCitation do with an interview?
EdCitation is the best tool for this job because it reads each entry from the publisher's or archive's own record, so the DOI, edition and names are the ones deposited, not ones a chatbot guessed. Cite a source builds six styles from a DOI or web address, free with no account, and lets you correct a web page's details first. EdCitation never writes any part of your paper.
What Cite a source returned
For the PMLA DOI, APA came back as: "Mirze, Z. E. (2008). Implementing disform: An interview with Orhan Pamuk. PMLA, 123(1), 176–180. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2008.123.1.176", the title set in sentence case as APA 7 asks. MLA and Chicago also came back under Mirze: move Pamuk to the front and add the interviewer.
For the NPR address, every style came back under the interviewer, "Mosley, T.", with no Fresh Air. Correcting the author to Joy Buolamwini in the page details gave, in Chicago:
Buolamwini, Joy. 2023. "'If You Have a Face, You Have a Place in the Conversation about AI,' Expert Says." NPR, November 28. https://www.npr.org/2023/11/28/1215529902/unmasking-ai-facial-recognition-technology-joy-buolamwini.
Add "Interview by Tonya Mosley", the programme and "Audio, 37:58" by hand.
For the UK Data Service DOI, APA gave "Lummis, T., & Thompson, P. (2009). Family life and work experience before 1918, 1870-1973 (Version 7) [Data set]. UK Data Service." and the DOI, the title already in sentence case. The Paris Review's page for its Toni Morrison interview returned "That page could not be read. Some sites block automated readers.", so that entry is built by hand.
What Verify references returned
We pasted five APA entries. The data set and the PMLA article came back verified with "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches.", and the NPR page with "The page is at this address, and its title matches." APA's own archival Smith example came back "check this", pointing to a PsycEXTRA record dated the same day, naming the same two people, with its own DOI, 10.1037/e511992014-001; it lists Kiesler first and Smith second, and we could not confirm from it who interviewed whom. APA says archival material available in a database takes the ordinary templates, so cite that record. Cite a source gives it in APA as "Kiesler, C. A., & Smith, M. B. (1989). American psychological association oral histories: Managing officers: Charles A. Kiesler, August 12, 1989 [Data set]. In PsycEXTRA Dataset. American Psychological Association." with its DOI. It set the title in sentence case and kept Charles A. Kiesler and August, but lowered the association's name at the start, so restore it by hand: American Psychological Association. An entry for a personal communication came back not checked, with the reason: "A personal communication has no published record to check. APA cites it in the text only, not in the reference list." Delete it from the list and keep the in-text citation.
Both tools are free. For a whole dissertation, References from a file, in Pro at $8 a month, checks the uploaded paper's references and matches each citation to the list; see also how to check a reference is real.
Quick questions
Is an interview a personal communication in APA?
Only if no reader can recover it. A published or archived interview gets a reference entry; an unrecorded one you held is a personal communication, cited in the text only; your research participants are neither.
How do I cite an interview I conducted for my dissertation?
In APA, quote participants as data without a citation, saying in the text that they are participants. MLA and Harvard list a named interviewee you conducted; an anonymous one gets a note or no entry.
Who is the author of a published interview?
In MLA, Chicago and Harvard, the interviewee, with the interviewer credited after the title. In APA, whoever the publication names as author, often the interviewer.
Can EdCitation cite an interview?
Yes, from a DOI or web address, in six styles, free. EdCitation's Cite a source takes the names from the record, so move the interviewee first for MLA, Chicago and Harvard and add the interviewer yourself.
Do I cite the transcript or the recording?
The version you used. APA's archival examples cover both a tape recording and a transcript whose recording is lost, and Chicago asks you to say where a transcript or recording can be found.
References
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.-a). Archival documents and collections. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/archival
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.-b). Data set references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/data-set-references
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.-c). Quotations from research participants. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/quoting-participants
- American Psychological Association. (2022, July). Personal communications. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/personal-communications
- IEEE. (2025). IEEE reference guide (Version 3.28.2025). IEEE Author Center. https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/IEEE_Reference_Guide.pdf
- International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. (2026). Preparing a manuscript for submission to a medical journal. Recommendations. https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/manuscript-preparation/preparing-for-submission.html
- Lummis, T., & Thompson, P. (2009). Family life and work experience before 1918, 1870–1973 (SN 2000; 7th ed.) [Data set]. UK Data Service. https://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-2000-1
- Mirze, Z. E. (2008). Implementing disform: An interview with Orhan Pamuk. PMLA, 123(1), 176–180. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2008.123.1.176
- Modern Language Association. (2016, June 7). How do I document an interview in MLA style? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/interview-in-mla-style/
- Modern Language Association. (2018, April 5). How do I cite a personal interview when the interviewee wishes to remain anonymous? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/citing-anonymous-interviewee/
- Modern Language Association. (2025, January 15). How do I cite an interview that I recorded? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/citing-recorded-interview/
- Patrias, K. (2007). Citing medicine: The NLM style guide for authors, editors, and publishers (D. L. Wendling, Tech. Ed.; 2nd ed.), Letters and other personal communication. National Library of Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7242/
- Robert Gordon University Library. (2026). Personal communications. Cite Them Right Harvard templates. https://library.rgu.ac.uk/harvard-referencing-templates/personal-communications
- University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services. (2026). Interview. APA 7th referencing guide. https://auckland.libguides.com/apa7th/interview
- University of Cambridge, Department of History and Philosophy of Science. (n.d.). Working with human participants: Ethical approval and data protection. https://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/about/admin/human-participants
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.-a). Author-date: Sample citations. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.-b). Citation, documentation of sources (Q&A No. 26). The Chicago Manual of Style Online. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Documentation/faq0026.html