Editing Survey methodology (section)

===Guidelines for the effective wording of questions===
The way that a question is phrased can have a large impact on how a research participant will answer the question.<ref name="Shaughnessy2011"/> Thus, survey researchers must be conscious of their wording when writing survey questions.<ref name="Shaughnessy2011"/> It is important for researchers to keep in mind that different individuals, cultures, and subcultures can interpret certain words and phrases differently from one another.<ref name="Shaughnessy2011"/> There are two different types of questions that survey researchers use when writing a questionnaire: free response questions and closed questions.<ref name="Shaughnessy2011"/> Free response questions are open-ended, whereas closed questions are usually multiple choice.<ref name="Shaughnessy2011"/> Free response questions are beneficial because they allow the responder greater flexibility, but they are also very difficult to record and score, requiring extensive coding.<ref name="Shaughnessy2011"/> Contrastingly, closed questions can be scored and coded more easily, but they diminish expressivity and spontaneity of the responder.<ref name="Shaughnessy2011"/> In general, the vocabulary of the questions should be very simple and direct, and most should be less than twenty words.<ref name="Shaughnessy2011"/>  Each question should be edited for "readability" and should avoid leading or loaded questions.<ref name="Shaughnessy2011"/> Finally, if multiple items are being used to measure one construct, the wording of some of the items should be worded in the opposite direction to evade response bias.<ref name="Shaughnessy2011"/>

A respondent's answer to an open-ended question can be coded into a response scale afterwards,<ref name="Mellenbergh, G.J. 2008 pp. 183–209"/> or analysed using more qualitative methods.