Household census and survey questionnaires are nearly always designed to gather a standard set of information about all members of the household. Usually the information is obtained from one person who acts as the “household respondent.” At a minimum, this set includes basic demographic information such as sex, race, date of birth, marital status, origin and relationship to a designated reference person. However, the set may include virtually the entire data volume anticipated from the survey, e.g., income information, social programs participation, labor force situation, health status, criminal victimization events, etc. The question for the survey designer is: What is the best way to structure the survey instrument to capture the information that a household respondent is going to provide about him/herself and the other household members? That is, is it better to ask all questions about one person before proceeding to the next person (the person-based approach), or is it better to complete one topic for all persons and then proceed to the next topic (the topic-based approach)? This paper provides a review of the literature on this topic.