First, a few quotes on asking questions:

People who ask confidently get more than those who are hesitant and uncertain. When you’ve figured out what you want to ask for, do it with certainty, boldness and confidence. — Jack Canfield

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. — Albert Einstein

Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new. — Og Mandino

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever. — Chinese Proverb

A major stimulant to creative thinking is focused questions. There is something about a well-worded question that often penetrates to the heart of the matter and triggers new ideas and insights. — Brian Tracy

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To: sws_info@sws.org.ph

Re: 2010 SWS survey results published October 14, 2009

Date: October 16, 2009

Dear Sir/Madam:

Greetings!

This is RJ Marmol of the blog “A Day In The Life Of RJ” – a personal/political blog established May 2008.

I write your office due to a growing concern regarding an issue circulating in the Philippine blogosphere referring to your recent survey results for the 2010 presidential elections. Apparently, there is much confusion going on prompted by the latest results you released – Third Quarter of 2009 published October 14, 2009 on your website with Sen. Aquino showing a sudden 60% preference.

Although your survey methods have always been this way, many people (myself included), most of them through their blogs, have expressed puzzlement as to the type of question you use to gauge respondent sentiments, and consequently, the data itself derived from such question. While it makes perfect sense that data will not add up 100% but 300% because of the prerequisite/option that respondents “may” give out up to three (3) names, it begs the question why this has to be the norm of your survey instead of just a) giving them a “template” of answers to choose from and limiting their answer to only one; or b) just asking them for one name – not three, and without giving them choices?

I think, if your goal is to capture “prevailing” public sentiment at a specific time frame in the context of an “elections-here-and-now” atmosphere, wouldn’t it be more profitable (not in monetary terms) for the general public to know sampling results on a 100% reference? After all, real-life elections don’t ask voters for three names of preferred candidates for the presidential post.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am not a statistician and I do not question your expertise or the way you conduct these surveys, I’m sure you have reasonable and scientific explanations as to your choice of method. But as a private citizen and registered voter and as a blogger who publish content for public consumption, I have a social responsibility to exhaust all means of deriving accurate information that will benefit not only myself but the online and offline community — and what better way to do that than to send this inquiry to the organization who knows exactly what they do and why – hence, this letter.

The blogosphere is littered with questions about this, yet I do not know whether at least one of them has contacted you to ask for clarification or more information.

In that regard, please excuse my ignorance in statistics and may I request that you indulge me on the following questions, if you would so permit? I intend to publish the answers I get on my blog to create clarity out of the prevailing confusion or misinformation online.

1)      Why ask for three names instead of just one?

2)      Why not provide a template of answers to choose from —  to reduce enviable data ie., “none” and “don’t knows”?

3)       What “exact data” are you after when you commission your surveys?

4)      In reference to previous question, does this method of yours more accurately capture the data that the public needs to know than if you used methods in questions 1 and 2? If so, please enlighten us.

5)      Your question doesn’t ask for first, second or third preference, so I would assume that the order by which the names are mentioned is not relevant. But if I am wrong in this assumption, maybe you should publish a more comprehensive list/specific breakdown of data. My question is, when one respondent mentions a name more than once, how you do regard this data? Are repetitions not counted? If so, where does that data go, to the “none”? or “don’t knows”? or do you have a “spoiled/invalid” data field?

6)      Additional question: Since increasing the sampling size decreases the error margin, and you have conducted surveys of up to 7,000 respondents with an error margin of +/- 1.2% in the past, why do you choose to vary your sampling size everytime? If a consistent 7,000-respondents-survey is too difficult to maintain, why not keep it at a consistent 1,200 respondents?

I look forward to getting a favorable response to this letter. Thank you for taking time reading this. I want you to know that I appreciate the information you consistently provide us.  More power to you.

Respectfully yours,

RJ Marmol

Blogger/Registered Voter

adayinthelifeofrj.com

** Same letter, slightly modified was sent to SWS awaiting response. I will publish any received response as soon as I can. Now, all I have to do is wait and pray that they consider responding to a poor blogger like me. :)**