Asking The Smart Way
08 Sep 2022
Are there such things as dumb questions?
Ever since I was in school, I would always be encouraged by my teachers to ask a question. I would often have difficulties with what questions I should be asking when I don’t quite understand the topic. Sometimes I would be ashamed to ask a question that might be easy to understand for other people. I learned throughout college that students have similar questions as me, and that I should not be ashamed to ask for help even if it means having to admit that I do not know something. We were always encouraged to ask questions in our classes no matter how hard or how easy the classes may be. However, are there such things as dumb questions? Yes.
Zero Effort
A dumb question is formed when someone is lazy and they put no effort into it. Professor Moore often tells the class not to ask questions such as “I did not do my homework, what is the solution? or vague questions like “Why is my code not working?” Asking the solution to a homework is something a person should not do. I believe that the question should be asked only after putting all the effort into the problem. Researching the problem beforehand is also ideal, perhaps someone might have posted a solution to your questions. If a question comes to mind, make sure the questions are clear and concise. We need to ask the “smart way.”
Smart vs Bad Questions
If you have tried everything, did your research and still no luck then it might be time to ask a smart question. In order to ask a smart question, make sure you communicate or demonstrate what you have learned along the way, you need to give a baseline of what you do know.
Here is an example of a Stack Overflow smart question . The person was asking about the process of arrays and why a sorted one may be sorted faster. He provided snippets and examples of codes that he created and tested. He showed us the run time data and demonstrated his knowledge of what he knows, and his initial thoughts. He also coded in two different languages because he thought it might have been the language compiler anomaly. It shows that he has tested and tried different methods, went through everything, and still hasn’t found the solution to his problem. Looking through some of the replies, he had answers that looked like they put a lot of effort into it, and they were very thorough.
Here is an example of a bad question from Stack Overflow. This person was asking what the difference between the = operator and the === operator. Then he went on and showed two different snippets of a code and asked what the difference between the two codes was. Looking at the code and the question, it did not really make sense what he was trying to ask. He also did not provide any details of what the code was, and he did not explain what he was trying to do. The people who answered his questions were also disagreeing with each other and they were providing a lot of corrections by pointing out his blatant errors.
Work Hard
After looking at both of these examples, we can definitely tell what makes a good and a bad question. I would recommend reading Raymond’s Essay if you want to understand more about how to create smart questions. It is important to always do everything you can, and look through all the resources before asking. If you have done everything else, make sure that the questions are well thought out and concise.