Asking Questions
by rrusczyk, Nov 21, 2009, 2:18 PM
MellowMelon has reminded me about writing and article on how to ask questions. I'm going to ask again for suggestions. What I'm looking for here isn't strategies for getting people to ask questions -- I'm looking for strategies for asking good questions. Things like:
-> Put yourself in the other person's shoes; what information do you think you'd need to answer the question?
-> If you're writing the question on a forum or in an email, reread the question when finished writing to make sure it makes sense, and has the necessary information.
-> If you want a specific answer, ask a specific question.
-> Highly specific questions are more likely to get answers than broad, non-specific questions.
What others should be on this list? (One way to think of these is to think about times you've been annoyed by poorly-framed questions. I get 5-10 such questions a week. I'm going to take notes on these over the next couple months and see what I find...)
-> Put yourself in the other person's shoes; what information do you think you'd need to answer the question?
-> If you're writing the question on a forum or in an email, reread the question when finished writing to make sure it makes sense, and has the necessary information.
-> If you want a specific answer, ask a specific question.
-> Highly specific questions are more likely to get answers than broad, non-specific questions.
What others should be on this list? (One way to think of these is to think about times you've been annoyed by poorly-framed questions. I get 5-10 such questions a week. I'm going to take notes on these over the next couple months and see what I find...)
February 2012
January 2012