How We Research and Write a Profile of a Canadian Musician or Maker

Starting from the public work

Every profile we run begins with the work itself, not with a press release or a rumour. If the subject is a musician, I listen to the albums in the order they were made, then go back to the ones that surprised me. If it is a writer, I read the books before I read anything about them. If it is a maker, I look at what has been built, painted, woven or carved, and where it can be seen in public. This sounds obvious, but it changes the shape of the finished piece. A profile that starts from the work tends to describe things a reader can go and find for themselves: a record on a library shelf, a mural on a wall, a film showing at a local cinema.

Our Canadian Personalities pages are drawn from public work and written with care, and that phrase is a working rule rather than a slogan. Anything we say about a person should be traceable to something they have released, performed, published or said in public. We do not claim access we do not have, and we do not dress up a pleasant afternoon of listening as an intimate encounter. When a profile is finished, I can usually list the works it rests on. If I cannot, the paragraph is not ready to stay in the piece.

The notebook, the shelf and the folder

The tools are plain ones. I keep a paper notebook for first impressions, because the first listen or first reading is the one I can never repeat. Beside it sits a shelf of reference books on Canadian music, theatre and literature, many of them second-hand, with the margins already marked by someone else. Then there is a digital folder for each subject, holding links, dates and the exact wording of anything I might quote. None of this is clever. The point is that a profile can run to a few thousand words and touch dozens of small facts, and memory alone is a poor guide when a reader may know the subject better than the writer does.

I note the source beside each fact as I go, rather than trying to reconstruct it afterward. A birthplace, a year of release, the name of a producer or a venue: each gets a line saying where I found it and whether a second source agrees. When two sources disagree, I either find a third or leave the detail out. A reader will forgive a missing detail far more readily than a wrong one. A profile that is slightly shorter and entirely sound serves people better than one padded with things nobody checked.

Reading interviews with a sceptical eye

Published interviews are useful, and they are also a trap. An artist who has told the same story to fifteen journalists will tell it the same way each time, and the anecdote hardens into fact simply because it keeps being repeated. When I find a tale that appears everywhere, I look for its earliest appearance and ask whether anyone ever checked it. I also pay attention to who was asking. A question shapes an answer, and an interview done for a local radio programme reads very differently from one done for a trade journal, even when the person speaking is the same.

Quotations get special care. We only quote words that were said or written in public, and we give them as they appeared, without tidying them into something smoother. If a line is cut for length, the cut is marked. If I am unsure of the context, I describe the idea in my own words instead. This habit costs us some colour, and I accept that. A profile with fewer quotations but every one of them sound is worth more to a reader than a lively one that might put words in someone's mouth.

Checks before a profile goes live

Once a draft exists, it goes through a routine that does not change from one subject to the next. I read it aloud, slowly, because the ear catches clumsy sentences and inflated praise that the eye skims over. Then the culture editor and the editor-in-chief each read it with different questions in mind: is it fair, is it clear, and would someone who has never heard of this person still follow it? The edit often removes more than it adds. Adjectives go first. A sentence calling someone a visionary rarely survives a second reading.

The final pass is a fact check done line by line against the notes. Names are compared with the spelling the person uses themselves. Dates are matched to the sources. Titles of albums, books and exhibitions are checked letter by letter, since a misspelled title is the quickest way to lose a knowledgeable reader's trust. Only after that does the piece move to publication. We would rather hold a profile for another day than let it out with a doubt still attached to it.

• Read the draft aloud once from start to finish
• Match every name and title to the subject's own spelling
• Mark any quotation that has been shortened
• Remove praise that no named work supports
• Confirm every date against at least one source

What we leave out on purpose

Some things never make it into a profile, however tempting. We do not print speculation about private lives, family trouble or money. We do not guess at motives. We do not describe a person's health, and we do not repeat gossip because it has been repeated elsewhere. The people we write about are artists and makers, and the useful part of their story is what they have put into the world. This restraint is also practical. Readers return to a magazine when they trust that it will treat the next person with the same courtesy.

We also avoid ranking. Calling someone the best or the most important invites an argument that cannot be settled and tells the reader very little. It is more honest to say what a record sounds like, what a novel is about, or what a craftsperson does differently from the usual way, and then let the reader decide. That leaves a profile quieter than much of what is published, but quiet suits the readers we write for. They are looking for something dependable to read over a cup of tea on a grey autumn afternoon, and they notice when a piece is trying too hard.

Why the method stays simple

People sometimes expect a more elaborate process from a magazine, with research teams and specialised software. Ours is a notebook, a shelf, a folder and a few editors who read carefully. The simplicity is deliberate. Each tool can be explained to a reader in a sentence, and each step can be repeated by any of us on any subject. It also means the work stays human in scale. A profile is one person paying close attention to another person's work for long enough to say something accurate about it.

If you ever finish one of our profiles and want to seek out the work it describes, that is the best outcome we could hope for. The piece has done its job when it sends you toward the music, the book or the object itself. Everything in our method, from the first listen to the last check of a spelling, is there to make that trip a good one.

The tools behind a Canadian Personalities profile are modest: public work, a notebook, careful sources and an editor who is willing to cut. None of it is secret, and all of it is meant to keep the writing honest. If a profile sends you off to listen, read or look at something you had not known before, then the method has done what we built it for.