ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the issue of topic as a source of coherence in conversations and in interviews. Although as school children are taught that topic is what defines a story, in what follows topic is examined as a resource for sense making. It suggests that a social worker's professional power becomes visible in the differential exercise of topic control, and further that there is an organisation of topic and form of control that is essential for the warrantable production of the occasion as a proper interview. Although use of questions is often essential for conducting interviews, skilled social workers recognise that a question can be pursued that is not formulated as a question. Although social workers and interviewers may use the resource of asking questions to shape the unfolding and direction of the interview, precisely because interviewees are not passive, interviews will quite predictably move in directions not preferred by the interviewer.
