How to Conduct Your Own Survey

Book excerpt: A nuts-and-bolts guide to conducting your own professional-qualitysurveys without paying professional fees. How can you gauge publicsupport for a cause or test the market for a product or service?What are the best methods for validating opinions for use in apaper or dissertation? A well-documented survey is the answer. Butwhat if you don't have thousands of dollars to commission one? Noproblem. How to Conduct Your Own Survey gives you everything youneed to do it yourself! Without any prior training, you can learnexpert techniques for conducting accurate, low-cost surveys. Instep-by-step, down-to-earth language, Priscilla Salant and Don A.Dillman give you the tools you need to: * Determine which type of survey is best for you * Estimate the cost of your survey * Conduct mail, telephone, and face-to-face surveys * Draw accurate samples * Write effective questionnaires * Compile and report results * Avoid common survey errors * Find reliable outside assistance * And much more