In this article, Helen Hand provides an account of personal experience as a novice researcher collecting data using semistructured interviews. The data were collected as part of a study involving nurse mentors who had had the experience of mentoring and subsequently failing a student nurse. The paper emphasises the importance of reflexivity as a method of signposting to the reader ‘what is going on’ in the research process. In conclusion, it is suggested that creating the ‘joint account’ is a complex but worthwhile task, but that great skill is required by the researcher in order to participate in the construction of reality