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Q: This probably sounds like the dumbest question, but someone asked me how to edit an interview where interviewer and interviewee are both talking at once. Any editorial marking or suggestion on how to show this in print? I am at a loss.

Thanks.

Lucy

A: I would put the quotes in whole, ordering them according to the chronology in which they began. If one speaker starts talking and the other speaker then comes in, I'd put the first speaker first, finish off the quote and then put in the whole second quote.

You can handle interspersed quotes by interspersing short paragraphs, but there is not a typographically sensible way to overlap quotes. This is one of the shortcomings of putting quotes down on paper.

If you wish, you could add a phrase like, "talking over each other" or "who sometimes speak at the same time." That should convey the nature of how the interview went.

Printed communication imposes more order on verbal communication than usually occurs.