A survey of English majors at the University of Southern Maine concerning the subject of curricular reform allowed a professor involved in the planning of the project to compile several "dos" and "don'ts" in an appendix titled "A Few Basic Principles of Questionnaire Design." These guidelines, however, require some qualification, since a questionnaire for English majors may permit deviations from some standard rules. Some experts might object to the administration of a survey during regular class sessions when participation is enforced by an authority figure, but the effectiveness of the method must be acknowledged nevertheless: the number of zero responses to the essay questions in this case proved to be less than 2%. Some data-gathering experts would also protest open essay survey questions, but again no approach can be excluded from the realm of possibility without due consideration of the particular goals of the survey. However, an analytical device called Coding Frames should probably be considered indispensable by any committee faced with the task of intelligently deploying information garnered through essay answers. Finally, surveys in English departments should beware of questions that could threaten the respondent, such as one on this survey that asked about the student's sexual orientation. The negative responses it drew suggest that it may have colored responses to the whole survey. (Appendix A, Sample Coding Frames, and Appendix B, A Few Basic Principles of Questionnaire Design, are attached.) (TB)