Converse and Presser present the guiding principles for writing survey questions. They review recent research on survey questions, consider the lore of professional experience and finally present findings which have the strongest implications on writing these questions.
The authors believe that question writing must be guided by the evidence of rigorous experiment as well as intuition and experience. They are also aware that experimental results cannot be applied mechanically to the mass production of survey questions, but they do suggest a number of ways to make pilot and pre-test work more fruitful.
Survey Questions is highly readable: the authors write with both wit and grace and their material is professionally sophisticated yet accessible.
