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The first goal in learning to write effective poll questions is to get the respondents to think. Engage their minds in the subject matter you are polling. That’s not always as easy as it sounds. Basic yes or no questions may be sufficient for your needs. On the other hand, complicated responses get people thinking more.

My personal preference is to make things as simple as possible: true/false, yes/no/I don’t know, or 3 to 4 multiple choice answers. With this one poll question I am not trying to solve all of the world’s vast hunger problems, as inviting as that sounds. I am merely engaging my readers.

If you make the responses easy to answer in a simple and straightforward manner, ask the question so that it accurately and honestly encapsulates the issue at hand. Here’s what I mean. If you want completely honest answers, you cannot slant the question to one side or the other.

Example: “Do you favor affordable health care for children?” I can guarantee you that 98% of the respondents will say “Yes.” Wouldn’t you? To me, that’s a dishonest or a faulty question. An honest question along those lines would be “Would you be willing to pay more taxes to reform the current health care system?” Here I introduced a new concept that people might be opposed to: higher taxes. Now the question is fair and more balanced. I suspect that answer here would be 50/50 or 60/40 in favor of one or the other.

Next, make certain you cover all areas in your answers. For example, no, yes, and I don’t know are fairly good choices for answers, especially when you are soliciting general opinion.

Avoid all-inclusive adverbs such as never, daily, none, always, all, etc. As an example, with the question: “do you always eat a fresh banana in the morning,” the one time a person runs out of fresh bananas negates the other 99.82% of the time. Use words such as some, frequently, often, mostly, or few. This should help you to write honest and accurate questions,

Lastly, be brief. Brevity is crucial in forming accurate online poll questions. Simpler question get answered. Period. Wouldn’t you answer a short question, if it’s understandable and readable? Recently, I asked a high school class, “do you thank you notes at Christmas time?” My two answers were yes and no. Very simple. Answerable. To the point. Either they wrote thank you notes or they didn’t. I left them no other options.