Why English? | Reporting CHERRIES Web Surveys Through Recruitment, Consent, Questionnaire Design, Response Rates and Duplicate Control

WHY ENGLISH?

Make an online survey understandable from invitation to the final analytic sample

Online surveys look simple because a link can reach many people quickly. Yet a web-survey result is only as interpretable as its recruitment wording, consent information, screen design, branching, response-rate denominators and handling of repeat entries. English matters because every one of those choices changes who answers and what a number means.

CHERRIES—the Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys—was published by Gunther Eysenbach in the Journal of Medical Internet Research on 29 September 2004. The corrected checklist covers design, ethics and consent, development and testing, recruitment, survey administration, response rates, duplicate prevention, analysis and data protection.

A 2012 correction reversed mistakenly printed numerators and denominators in the original response-rate formulas. This guide uses the corrected definitions: view rate is unique survey visitors divided by unique site visitors; participation rate is people who agreed to participate divided by unique first-page visitors; completion rate is people who finished divided by those who agreed to participate.

READING ROUTE
Invitation and ethics

Show how people reached the survey and consented.

READING ROUTE
Questionnaire experience

Describe screens, branching and testing.

READING ROUTE
Response-rate logic

Name each numerator and denominator.

READING ROUTE
Data integrity

Explain duplicates, missingness and privacy.

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Article contents

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1. Identify the Survey Design and Target Population
2. Report Ethics Review, Consent and Data Protection
3. Preserve the Recruitment Message
4. Explain Development, Pretesting and Technical Testing
5. Distinguish Open and Closed Surveys
6. Describe Pages, Items, Branching and Randomisation
7. Report Validation, Completeness Checks and Backtracking
8. Define Unique Visitors and the View Rate
9. Define Participation and Completion Rates
10. Show Attrition and Missing Data by Stage
11. Prevent and Describe Multiple Entries
12. Report Analysis Choices and Sample Construction
13. Write Findings Without Generalising Past the Recruitment

ORIENTATION

What this guide owns

Current fact check

CHERRIES is a reporting checklist for web-based surveys. Its 2012 correction is essential when stating view, participation and completion rates, because some older copies may retain the reversed formulas.

Canonical boundary

This article owns reporting of Internet and web surveys with CHERRIES. It does not replace questionnaire validation, sampling theory, privacy law, statistical analysis or a general guide to all observational research.

Worked example

Every chapter returns to a fictional voluntary web survey about how secondary students use digital revision planners. It is fictional, low-stakes and educational; it does not report a real school, clinical decision or guaranteed outcome.

Did You Know? For cherries, complete reporting makes appraisal possible but does not perform the appraisal, remove bias or guarantee transfer.

Warm up with eduKate’s guides to explaining scientific evidence and asking better questions in class.

CHAPTER 1 OF 13

1. Identify the Survey Design and Target Population

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Why this move matters

Name the intended population, sampling frame, open or closed design and whether the sample is probabilistic, invited or self-selected.

Did You Know? CHERRIES begins by asking authors to describe the survey design and sampling context.

Read the screen as part of the method

Name the intended population, sampling frame, open or closed design and whether the sample is probabilistic, invited or self-selected. In a web survey, wording lives beside buttons, page breaks, validation rules and branching. Record what a participant actually saw, not only the final spreadsheet column.

Trace one respondent journey

Use the fictional study: The report distinguishes all students at participating schools from the students who noticed an open planner link. Follow invitation, consent, first page, adaptive questions, review, submission and duplicate checks. At each step, ask which people could continue and which might leave.

Keep the rates mathematically honest

Separate view, participation and completion rates and name the numerator and denominator in words. A percentage without the journey that generated it may sound precise while describing the wrong behaviour.

Protect the boundary

A large convenience sample may still poorly represent the target population. Explain technical safeguards and residual risks in plain English so readers can judge privacy, selection and data quality without assuming that online collection is automatically representative.

Practical reader check

Point to the exact source or method sentence supporting the claim.
Name the person, setting, date, input and decision rule that could change its meaning.
Label the remaining uncertainty reported, inferred, contested or unknown.

Student, parent and career transfer

Make one evidence card for “Identify the Survey Design and Target Population”: source location, plain-language meaning, limit and next question. A parent or teacher can ask for one everyday explanation and one specialist explanation; both must preserve the same conditions. This habit supports education research, user research, public communication, product design, survey operations and data analysis without promising a grade, admission, funding decision or job.

CHAPTER 2 OF 13

2. Report Ethics Review, Consent and Data Protection

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Why this move matters

State the review pathway, information shown before participation, investigator identity, purpose, survey length, stored data, retention and access safeguards.

Did You Know? The checklist links informed consent with concrete information about stored data and protection.

Read the screen as part of the method

State the review pathway, information shown before participation, investigator identity, purpose, survey length, stored data, retention and access safeguards. In a web survey, wording lives beside buttons, page breaks, validation rules and branching. Record what a participant actually saw, not only the final spreadsheet column.

Trace one respondent journey

Use the fictional study: The consent page explains that participation is voluntary and that school grades are not collected. Follow invitation, consent, first page, adaptive questions, review, submission and duplicate checks. At each step, ask which people could continue and which might leave.

Keep the rates mathematically honest

Protect the boundary

A click on Continue is meaningful only when the preceding information is understandable. Explain technical safeguards and residual risks in plain English so readers can judge privacy, selection and data quality without assuming that online collection is automatically representative.

Practical reader check

Point to the exact source or method sentence supporting the claim.
Name the person, setting, date, input and decision rule that could change its meaning.
Label the remaining uncertainty reported, inferred, contested or unknown.

Student, parent and career transfer

Make one evidence card for “Report Ethics Review, Consent and Data Protection”: source location, plain-language meaning, limit and next question. A parent or teacher can ask for one everyday explanation and one specialist explanation; both must preserve the same conditions. This habit supports education research, user research, public communication, product design, survey operations and data analysis without promising a grade, admission, funding decision or job.

CHAPTER 3 OF 13

3. Preserve the Recruitment Message

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Why this move matters

Report where the survey was announced, how initial contact occurred, the exact invitation wording and any incentives.

Did You Know? CHERRIES recommends making the survey announcement available, ideally as an appendix.

Read the screen as part of the method

Report where the survey was announced, how initial contact occurred, the exact invitation wording and any incentives. In a web survey, wording lives beside buttons, page breaks, validation rules and branching. Record what a participant actually saw, not only the final spreadsheet column.

Trace one respondent journey

Use the fictional study: A social-media invitation promising personalised study advice may attract different students from a neutral school notice. Follow invitation, consent, first page, adaptive questions, review, submission and duplicate checks. At each step, ask which people could continue and which might leave.

Keep the rates mathematically honest

Protect the boundary

Recruitment language can shape the sample before the first survey question appears. Explain technical safeguards and residual risks in plain English so readers can judge privacy, selection and data quality without assuming that online collection is automatically representative.

Practical reader check

Point to the exact source or method sentence supporting the claim.
Name the person, setting, date, input and decision rule that could change its meaning.
Label the remaining uncertainty reported, inferred, contested or unknown.

Student, parent and career transfer

Make one evidence card for “Preserve the Recruitment Message”: source location, plain-language meaning, limit and next question. A parent or teacher can ask for one everyday explanation and one specialist explanation; both must preserve the same conditions. This habit supports education research, user research, public communication, product design, survey operations and data analysis without promising a grade, admission, funding decision or job.

CHAPTER 4 OF 13

4. Explain Development, Pretesting and Technical Testing

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Why this move matters

Describe item development, expert review, cognitive testing, usability checks, browser or device testing and pilot changes.

Did You Know? CHERRIES explicitly asks whether usability and technical functionality were tested before fielding.

Read the screen as part of the method

Describe item development, expert review, cognitive testing, usability checks, browser or device testing and pilot changes. In a web survey, wording lives beside buttons, page breaks, validation rules and branching. Record what a participant actually saw, not only the final spreadsheet column.

Trace one respondent journey

Use the fictional study: Students test whether branching instructions remain clear on a small phone screen. Follow invitation, consent, first page, adaptive questions, review, submission and duplicate checks. At each step, ask which people could continue and which might leave.

Keep the rates mathematically honest

Protect the boundary

Technical success does not establish that an item measures the intended construct. Explain technical safeguards and residual risks in plain English so readers can judge privacy, selection and data quality without assuming that online collection is automatically representative.

Practical reader check

Point to the exact source or method sentence supporting the claim.
Name the person, setting, date, input and decision rule that could change its meaning.
Label the remaining uncertainty reported, inferred, contested or unknown.

Student, parent and career transfer

Make one evidence card for “Explain Development, Pretesting and Technical Testing”: source location, plain-language meaning, limit and next question. A parent or teacher can ask for one everyday explanation and one specialist explanation; both must preserve the same conditions. This habit supports education research, user research, public communication, product design, survey operations and data analysis without promising a grade, admission, funding decision or job.

CHAPTER 5 OF 13

5. Distinguish Open and Closed Surveys

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Why this move matters

Say whether anyone could enter or only known invitees could participate, and explain passwords, tokens or access controls.

Did You Know? Access design changes which denominator and duplicate-control method make sense.

Read the screen as part of the method

Say whether anyone could enter or only known invitees could participate, and explain passwords, tokens or access controls. In a web survey, wording lives beside buttons, page breaks, validation rules and branching. Record what a participant actually saw, not only the final spreadsheet column.

Trace one respondent journey

Use the fictional study: Each invited class receives individual links, while a public information page is not itself the questionnaire. Follow invitation, consent, first page, adaptive questions, review, submission and duplicate checks. At each step, ask which people could continue and which might leave.

Keep the rates mathematically honest

Protect the boundary

A closed link reduces some uncertainty but does not prove that the intended person answered. Explain technical safeguards and residual risks in plain English so readers can judge privacy, selection and data quality without assuming that online collection is automatically representative.

Practical reader check

Point to the exact source or method sentence supporting the claim.
Name the person, setting, date, input and decision rule that could change its meaning.
Label the remaining uncertainty reported, inferred, contested or unknown.

Student, parent and career transfer

Make one evidence card for “Distinguish Open and Closed Surveys”: source location, plain-language meaning, limit and next question. A parent or teacher can ask for one everyday explanation and one specialist explanation; both must preserve the same conditions. This habit supports education research, user research, public communication, product design, survey operations and data analysis without promising a grade, admission, funding decision or job.

CHAPTER 6 OF 13

6. Describe Pages, Items, Branching and Randomisation

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Why this move matters

Report item counts, pages, optional and mandatory fields, adaptive questioning, random order and review opportunities.

Did You Know? The number of items per page and total screens can influence completion.

Read the screen as part of the method

Report item counts, pages, optional and mandatory fields, adaptive questioning, random order and review opportunities. In a web survey, wording lives beside buttons, page breaks, validation rules and branching. Record what a participant actually saw, not only the final spreadsheet column.

Trace one respondent journey

Use the fictional study: Students who do not use a planner skip feature questions but still see the same well-being items. Follow invitation, consent, first page, adaptive questions, review, submission and duplicate checks. At each step, ask which people could continue and which might leave.

Keep the rates mathematically honest

Protect the boundary

Different paths can give respondents different burdens and opportunities to answer. Explain technical safeguards and residual risks in plain English so readers can judge privacy, selection and data quality without assuming that online collection is automatically representative.

Practical reader check

Point to the exact source or method sentence supporting the claim.
Name the person, setting, date, input and decision rule that could change its meaning.
Label the remaining uncertainty reported, inferred, contested or unknown.

Student, parent and career transfer

Make one evidence card for “Describe Pages, Items, Branching and Randomisation”: source location, plain-language meaning, limit and next question. A parent or teacher can ask for one everyday explanation and one specialist explanation; both must preserve the same conditions. This habit supports education research, user research, public communication, product design, survey operations and data analysis without promising a grade, admission, funding decision or job.

CHAPTER 7 OF 13

7. Report Validation, Completeness Checks and Backtracking

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Why this move matters

Explain range checks, required responses, non-response options, error messages and whether answers could be reviewed or changed.

Did You Know? CHERRIES separates completion of the survey from completeness of every item.

Read the screen as part of the method

Explain range checks, required responses, non-response options, error messages and whether answers could be reviewed or changed. In a web survey, wording lives beside buttons, page breaks, validation rules and branching. Record what a participant actually saw, not only the final spreadsheet column.

Trace one respondent journey

Use the fictional study: A frequency field accepts zero and offers prefer not to answer instead of forcing a false positive value. Follow invitation, consent, first page, adaptive questions, review, submission and duplicate checks. At each step, ask which people could continue and which might leave.

Keep the rates mathematically honest

Protect the boundary

Forced completion may reduce blanks while increasing arbitrary answers or abandonment. Explain technical safeguards and residual risks in plain English so readers can judge privacy, selection and data quality without assuming that online collection is automatically representative.

Practical reader check

Point to the exact source or method sentence supporting the claim.
Name the person, setting, date, input and decision rule that could change its meaning.
Label the remaining uncertainty reported, inferred, contested or unknown.

Student, parent and career transfer

Make one evidence card for “Report Validation, Completeness Checks and Backtracking”: source location, plain-language meaning, limit and next question. A parent or teacher can ask for one everyday explanation and one specialist explanation; both must preserve the same conditions. This habit supports education research, user research, public communication, product design, survey operations and data analysis without promising a grade, admission, funding decision or job.

CHAPTER 8 OF 13

8. Define Unique Visitors and the View Rate

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Why this move matters

State how unique visitors were identified and calculate unique survey visitors divided by unique site visitors when a view rate is reported.

Did You Know? The corrected formula uses people or unique visitors, not page views.

Read the screen as part of the method

State how unique visitors were identified and calculate unique survey visitors divided by unique site visitors when a view rate is reported. In a web survey, wording lives beside buttons, page breaks, validation rules and branching. Record what a participant actually saw, not only the final spreadsheet column.

Trace one respondent journey

Use the fictional study: The report explains whether cookies, login identifiers or de-identified tokens defined uniqueness. Follow invitation, consent, first page, adaptive questions, review, submission and duplicate checks. At each step, ask which people could continue and which might leave.

Keep the rates mathematically honest

Protect the boundary

IP addresses may merge households or split mobile users and raise privacy concerns. Explain technical safeguards and residual risks in plain English so readers can judge privacy, selection and data quality without assuming that online collection is automatically representative.

Practical reader check

Point to the exact source or method sentence supporting the claim.
Name the person, setting, date, input and decision rule that could change its meaning.
Label the remaining uncertainty reported, inferred, contested or unknown.

Student, parent and career transfer

Make one evidence card for “Define Unique Visitors and the View Rate”: source location, plain-language meaning, limit and next question. A parent or teacher can ask for one everyday explanation and one specialist explanation; both must preserve the same conditions. This habit supports education research, user research, public communication, product design, survey operations and data analysis without promising a grade, admission, funding decision or job.

CHAPTER 9 OF 13

9. Define Participation and Completion Rates

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Why this move matters

Calculate participation as people agreeing divided by first-page visitors, and completion as finishers divided by people agreeing.

Did You Know? The 2012 correction warns that incorrect formulas may survive in older copies.

Read the screen as part of the method

Calculate participation as people agreeing divided by first-page visitors, and completion as finishers divided by people agreeing. In a web survey, wording lives beside buttons, page breaks, validation rules and branching. Record what a participant actually saw, not only the final spreadsheet column.

Trace one respondent journey

Use the fictional study: The article reports all counts beside the percentages so readers can reconstruct them. Follow invitation, consent, first page, adaptive questions, review, submission and duplicate checks. At each step, ask which people could continue and which might leave.

Keep the rates mathematically honest

Protect the boundary

Completion does not mean every question was answered and should not be called completeness. Explain technical safeguards and residual risks in plain English so readers can judge privacy, selection and data quality without assuming that online collection is automatically representative.

Practical reader check

Point to the exact source or method sentence supporting the claim.
Name the person, setting, date, input and decision rule that could change its meaning.
Label the remaining uncertainty reported, inferred, contested or unknown.

Student, parent and career transfer

Make one evidence card for “Define Participation and Completion Rates”: source location, plain-language meaning, limit and next question. A parent or teacher can ask for one everyday explanation and one specialist explanation; both must preserve the same conditions. This habit supports education research, user research, public communication, product design, survey operations and data analysis without promising a grade, admission, funding decision or job.

CHAPTER 10 OF 13

10. Show Attrition and Missing Data by Stage

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Why this move matters

Report where people left, which items were skipped, how partial questionnaires were analysed and whether paths had different dropout patterns.

Did You Know? A web platform can record detailed paradata, but collection should still be justified and disclosed.

Read the screen as part of the method

Report where people left, which items were skipped, how partial questionnaires were analysed and whether paths had different dropout patterns. In a web survey, wording lives beside buttons, page breaks, validation rules and branching. Record what a participant actually saw, not only the final spreadsheet column.

Trace one respondent journey

Use the fictional study: A long reflection page has disproportionate exits, prompting a sensitivity analysis of complete and partial records. Follow invitation, consent, first page, adaptive questions, review, submission and duplicate checks. At each step, ask which people could continue and which might leave.

Keep the rates mathematically honest

Protect the boundary

Deleting every partial record can change the sample and hide design problems. Explain technical safeguards and residual risks in plain English so readers can judge privacy, selection and data quality without assuming that online collection is automatically representative.

Practical reader check

Point to the exact source or method sentence supporting the claim.
Name the person, setting, date, input and decision rule that could change its meaning.
Label the remaining uncertainty reported, inferred, contested or unknown.

Student, parent and career transfer

Make one evidence card for “Show Attrition and Missing Data by Stage”: source location, plain-language meaning, limit and next question. A parent or teacher can ask for one everyday explanation and one specialist explanation; both must preserve the same conditions. This habit supports education research, user research, public communication, product design, survey operations and data analysis without promising a grade, admission, funding decision or job.

CHAPTER 11 OF 13

11. Prevent and Describe Multiple Entries

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Why this move matters

Explain cookies, tokens, logins, IP checks, timestamps or statistical checks and how suspected duplicates were handled.

Did You Know? CHERRIES treats multiple entries as a reporting issue, not merely a software setting.

Read the screen as part of the method

Explain cookies, tokens, logins, IP checks, timestamps or statistical checks and how suspected duplicates were handled. In a web survey, wording lives beside buttons, page breaks, validation rules and branching. Record what a participant actually saw, not only the final spreadsheet column.

Trace one respondent journey

Use the fictional study: A student can resume the same token but cannot create a second submitted record without review. Follow invitation, consent, first page, adaptive questions, review, submission and duplicate checks. At each step, ask which people could continue and which might leave.

Keep the rates mathematically honest

Protect the boundary

No method perfectly distinguishes legitimate shared-device use from repeated participation. Explain technical safeguards and residual risks in plain English so readers can judge privacy, selection and data quality without assuming that online collection is automatically representative.

Practical reader check

Point to the exact source or method sentence supporting the claim.
Name the person, setting, date, input and decision rule that could change its meaning.
Label the remaining uncertainty reported, inferred, contested or unknown.

Student, parent and career transfer

Make one evidence card for “Prevent and Describe Multiple Entries”: source location, plain-language meaning, limit and next question. A parent or teacher can ask for one everyday explanation and one specialist explanation; both must preserve the same conditions. This habit supports education research, user research, public communication, product design, survey operations and data analysis without promising a grade, admission, funding decision or job.

CHAPTER 12 OF 13

12. Report Analysis Choices and Sample Construction

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Why this move matters

State inclusion rules, weighting, transformations, exclusions, quality checks and the final analytic denominator for every result.

Did You Know? The final sample may be smaller than the number shown on the platform dashboard.

Read the screen as part of the method

State inclusion rules, weighting, transformations, exclusions, quality checks and the final analytic denominator for every result. In a web survey, wording lives beside buttons, page breaks, validation rules and branching. Record what a participant actually saw, not only the final spreadsheet column.

Trace one respondent journey

Use the fictional study: The analysis separates submitted questionnaires from records meeting the stated age and school criteria. Follow invitation, consent, first page, adaptive questions, review, submission and duplicate checks. At each step, ask which people could continue and which might leave.

Keep the rates mathematically honest

Protect the boundary

Post-hoc cleaning rules can manufacture a tidy story unless decisions are visible. Explain technical safeguards and residual risks in plain English so readers can judge privacy, selection and data quality without assuming that online collection is automatically representative.

Practical reader check

Point to the exact source or method sentence supporting the claim.
Name the person, setting, date, input and decision rule that could change its meaning.
Label the remaining uncertainty reported, inferred, contested or unknown.

Student, parent and career transfer

Make one evidence card for “Report Analysis Choices and Sample Construction”: source location, plain-language meaning, limit and next question. A parent or teacher can ask for one everyday explanation and one specialist explanation; both must preserve the same conditions. This habit supports education research, user research, public communication, product design, survey operations and data analysis without promising a grade, admission, funding decision or job.

CHAPTER 13 OF 13

13. Write Findings Without Generalising Past the Recruitment

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Why this move matters

Connect conclusions to the actual access route, response process, missingness and limits on representativeness.

Did You Know? Good English makes the limits of a digital result easier to use, not weaker.

Read the screen as part of the method

Connect conclusions to the actual access route, response process, missingness and limits on representativeness. In a web survey, wording lives beside buttons, page breaks, validation rules and branching. Record what a participant actually saw, not only the final spreadsheet column.

Trace one respondent journey

Use the fictional study: The conclusion says respondents reported planner habits rather than claiming all Singapore students behave the same way. Follow invitation, consent, first page, adaptive questions, review, submission and duplicate checks. At each step, ask which people could continue and which might leave.

Keep the rates mathematically honest

Protect the boundary

Transparent reporting does not turn a self-selected survey into a probability sample. Explain technical safeguards and residual risks in plain English so readers can judge privacy, selection and data quality without assuming that online collection is automatically representative.

Practical reader check

Point to the exact source or method sentence supporting the claim.
Name the person, setting, date, input and decision rule that could change its meaning.
Label the remaining uncertainty reported, inferred, contested or unknown.

Student, parent and career transfer

Make one evidence card for “Write Findings Without Generalising Past the Recruitment”: source location, plain-language meaning, limit and next question. A parent or teacher can ask for one everyday explanation and one specialist explanation; both must preserve the same conditions. This habit supports education research, user research, public communication, product design, survey operations and data analysis without promising a grade, admission, funding decision or job.

PRACTICE LAB

Build a web_survey decision trail

Student route

Choose one original report inside this guide’s scope.
Copy its objective and underline actor, action, context, evidence and intended decision.
Draw the specific reasoning chain used in this article.
Mark each step reported, inferred, contested or unknown.
Rewrite the conclusion so it preserves the narrowest important limitation.

Parent or teacher route

Ask the learner to explain make an online survey understandable from invitation to the final analytic sample twice: once to a classmate and once to a method specialist. Praise a precise correction and a well-stated unknown; both show disciplined attention to evidence.

Early-career route

Create a one-page cherries audit with source link, date checked, scope, method logic, decisive wording, contrary evidence, limit and next action. A colleague should be able to continue without guessing.

Decision rule

If a shorter explanation removes the condition that made the original claim true, it is not clearer yet. Restore the condition.

Continue with eduKate’s guides to reading course and career information and giving useful feedback in group projects.

USEFUL NEXT READING

Connect this narrow owner to its neighbour

Read the PRISMA-S literature-search guide for a related but different reader job. Return here when the question is specifically how to make an online survey understandable from invitation to the final analytic sample. This boundary keeps one canonical owner per intent.

For English practice across research, school and career communication, visit the Singapore English Tuition Centre learning site.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Questions students and parents often ask

What does CHERRIES stand for?

Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys.

Is CHERRIES only for medical surveys?

It originated in health research but addresses general reporting problems of web surveys.

What is the corrected completion rate?

People who finished divided by people who agreed to participate.

Is completion the same as completeness?

No. A respondent may finish while leaving permitted items blank.

Do cookies prove one person answered once?

No. They are one imperfect control and have privacy implications.

Does CHERRIES validate a questionnaire?

No. It asks authors to report development and testing; validity requires separate evidence.

PRIMARY SOURCES

Read the original cherries guidance

Facts were checked against original publications and official records on 5 November 2026. Follow the live source for later corrections, completed updates or companion material.

A cheerful final note

Precise English makes make an online survey understandable from invitation to the final analytic sample more generous, not less. People can see how their evidence and values entered the work, where disagreement remains and what a responsible next step looks like.

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