Since its inception, Conversation Analysis (CA) has been concerned both with the institution of social interaction and with how the work of institutions gets done through social interaction. Institutions – like medicine, law, or education – are central to the business of being human, making them of special interest to social scientists. Working with recordings of real interactions from a given institution, conversation analysts address three broad questions: (1) What makes this institution distinctive? (2) How does the institution function to meet its goals?

(3) How might we use our understanding to try to enhance the institution’s functioning? This chapter works through some key ways in which CA addresses questions (1) and (2) (see Barnes, this volume, re: question 3). Using the metaphor of an archeological dig, I suggest that the analytic process involves ‘digging down’ through four increasingly granular levels: (i) the overall structural organization of the interactions; (ii) activity ‘packages’; (iii) action sequences; and (iv) practices. I illustrate each level with worked examples from a study of UK neurology consultations. The chapter thus offers a wealth of practical tips drawn not only from the principles of CA, but from extensive experience of doing this kind of research.