4 Tips for Weekly Shot Poll Questions

As editors of the Texas Handgun Association we love the idea of running short, easy, interesting polls every week. We also enjoy getting poll suggestions from readers, but sometimes the questions won't work for our One-Question Poll format. Here are four tips to help ensure your questions can be used in the poll:

• Use single-choice questions: A single-choice question lets respondents quickly select a single answer from a list of pre-determined responses. Every published poll question to date is in this format, so if you want to see examples just look at any past poll.
• Provide sample answers: We might interpret your question differently than you. We might come up with answers which don't match what you're thinking. So it really helps if you provide a starter list of potential answers.
• Avoid open-ended questions: Open-ended questions ask respondents to type something in the answer box. The answers can be anything, which makes it very difficult to add up totals and have a useful summary
• Avoid multi-part questions: A multi-part question is of the form "Would you do X and what kind?" It's one question, but it's two parts with two different types of data. Plus open-ended answers which, as noted above, are difficult to use.

These four things make sense if you think about what the poll is and how we have to report back in the next issue. You can probably figure out a way to fit whatever question you have into this format with just a little thought. Keep these tips in mind and let us know what you want to see next!