How To Be Smart and Get What You Want
26 Jan 2023What exactly is a smart vs not-so-smart question?
You want an answer? Come and get it.
If I were a professor or a senior team member, I would tell my colleagues and students the same. “Smart” questions are the ones more typically eagerly and helpfully answered by others. To ask a smart question, first and foremost, is to put in the efforts, research, and trials by yourself. You must come up with your own theories and trials yourself. If it does not work, take a moment and step back. Take a break, and when you come back, re-read your source code and try to do some research on similar problems. However, do not just click on the first things that pop up. You need to browse through and see if other websites or resources may have additional information. When it comes to posting or actually asking your question, make sure to provide as many details as you can on the issue– without making it overly complicated. That means do not spend a whole essay on your question! No one wants to read a boring, long, and unnecessary essay just because someone does not know how to word or properly phrase a question. Try to give some background information, like what you tried and briefly explain what other functions you may have. One of the biggest common mistakes is providing a poor title. I can guarantee you that an expert or helper does NOT want to answer a question titled, “HELP PLEASE!!” or “IDK how to do (insert_function_here)”. Usually, these posters will upload their question or given material and just expect an answer responses. No one (besides a robot) wants to help people like such! Actual helpful advisors will review what you did and give criticism or feedback in order to point you in the correct direction. That is what they are meant to do; they are not meant to just give you the answers. Lastly, it is notable to ask your questions in the correct websites and categories. For example, if you incorrectly ask your programming coding question in the cyber-security section, the chances will only get slimmer of someone giving you helpful feedback.
On the other hand, a not-so-smart question is quite literally the opposite listed above. They are questions just directly only asking for the answer. Instructions and material will be uploaded and the poster will just be expecting and wanting an answer. It is easily detectable that they did not put in any effort into actually trying the problem themselves. Usually, the title of the post will give away just how immature or little-effort the question was given. Another way of asking a question a “not smart” way, is to make things way more complicated than they have to be. Similarly, giving too little information may just be as unhelpful. Questions could be interpreted incorrectly or the response may not be the response you were hoping for.
If You Ask (correctly), You Shall Receive
This is an example of a smart question. Here, they have correctly and accurately described what they were trying to accomplish. Their title gets straight to the point without begging for an answer and the question is posted with adequate tags corresponding to the topic. This person even described what they believe is the next step, but is asking if there is an alternative or if they are even heading in the correct direction. To potential responders, this shows that the poster has thought of and may have potentially come up with a solution already. They have clearly shown their interest and care with their efforts, which entices many others to want to respond and give feedback.
A Not So Smart Way To Ask A Question
Here, we have a person with an obnoxious title, “pls HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME”. Not only that, but they only explained that they were making a game in unity and received an error to their code. What are they even really asking? What exactly are they trying to accomplish in their code and how can someone help? This person was very unclear and only posted their code afterwards. Although they were technically asking for feedback, they did so by being immature and too straight-forward.