There is a popular saying when it comes to asking questions. It has many different forms but despite that, they all still manage to give the same message.
"There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question." -Carl Sagan
This kind of saying is often heard in classrooms when teachers are trying to incorporate interaction from students during lessons. They encourage questions and assure students there is no such thing as a bad question. There is a debate on whether the above quote is true but in this essay I will not be talking about questions in a negative light such as that. Instead, I’ll be reflecting on how people can ask questions in a “smart way”.
Although whether stupid questions do exist is still up for debate, certain kinds of questions will naturally lead to different sorts of answers. After doing a quick search on StackOverflow, a certain question caught my eye.
First off, the title of the question already drew me in: “Changing JavaScript function’s parameter value using arguments array not working”. The title of the question is the first thing that people see on StackOverflow so it’s important to let others know the gist of what you need help with. By doing so it helps to increase the chances of the right people (those who are knowledgable on your question’s topic) to click on your question and answer it.
After clicking on the above question, there are extra details and information shown which helps to supplement the title question. The user asking this question provides the code snippets which allows people trying to answer the question to understand where the user might have gone wrong. At the end of the question, the user also adds in their own thoughts on the problem they’re experiencing and why they’re confused it’s not working.
This question garnered 19 votes, 6 answers, and over 700 views. The answers this question received in particular are also detailed and help to clearly clarify the confusion the user was experiencing. In addition, different answers provide supplemental links for further understanding and help regarding the problem. Seeing as how this question was clearly answered in detail by multiple people, it has fulfilled its purpose and the user likely has a better understanding their code.
Just like how there are questions asked in a smart way, there are questions which are not. This does not mean that these questions are bad per say, but their chances of getting helpful answers are hindered in comparison to those that are asked in a smart way.
For this example I took another question from StackOverflow. The title of this question is: “Must I using fclose function?” Right off the bat it’s easy to see there is a very clear difference from the title of this question in comparison to the title from the above question. This title is not only slightly vague, but it also uses incorrect grammar. This can turn people off from clicking the question and ansewring it. For those that aren’t turned off by the vagueness and incorrect grammar, the additional information attached to the question is similarly a bit vague, uses incorrect grammar, and doesn’t provide a lot of detail to their problem.
The results of this question are a total of -3 votes, 1 answer, and 12 views. In addition, to match the shortness and lack of detail present in the question, the sole answer given is likewise short and without much detail. Perhaps a way to see this is that just like how the user asking the question likely didn’t spend much time or effort asking and providing information on their question, the person answering gave an equal amount of time and effort in writing their answer.
StackOverflow is a great site that is very helpful for coding. I’ve used it many times for help in understanding why I was receiving a certain type of error in my code and what I could do in order to fix it. Through looking at different examples of questions it’s clear that the way a question is written can impact the resulting answers received. Due to this, I believe it’s important to ask questions in a smart way in order to increase the chances of receiving detailed and helpful answers.