For many years, there was little basis for quarreling with the title of Stanley Payne’s
1951 classic. Asking questions was an art. Now, however, a body of work has accumulated that lays a foundation for a science of asking questions. Researchers can make decisions about some aspects of question wording informed by the results of theoretically motivated experimental comparisons. Although asking questions will always involve an element of art, future research is likely to provide guidance for decisions about many other features of wording. The resulting improvements in survey measurement should facilitate progress in all areas of social science that make use of questionnaires.