Afraid to Ask the Right Question
23 Jan 2024
There’s no such thing as a stupid question.
How many times have you heard that line before? Growing up, I’ve always been encouraged to ask questions. That there is no such thing as a stupid question so you should not be afraid to ask. Even with all this encouragement, I was still afraid to ask questions. How should I ask? Am I going to sound dumb for asking a simple question? Will I end up bothering them? But in reality, there are stupid questions. I’ve met the cold reality of asking a question before really understanding the topic. “Have you tried searching before you ask this question?” “Have you tried looking at the textbook first?” I’ve always thought where are the guidelines for asking the right question? Over the years, I’ve learned there are smart ways of asking a question that helped me get over the fear of asking one.
Why it’s Important to Ask Questions
First, we should look at why we are asking questions. To help gain a better understanding of the subject matter. Questions are very powerful tools used to find solutions and identify gaps in our understanding. Questions can even be used to strengthen relationships. Professionally, when asking your employer a question about your job, it can show that you care about what you are doing or want to improve on what you are currently doing.
When asking a question, it is very important to ask them effectively. In most cases, before even asking the question, you should at least try to find the answer on your own, whether through a book or online search. To whoever you are asking the question to, they will greatly appreciate a bit of knowledge on the subject matter so it shows that you at least attempted to find the answer on your own before asking them for help.
Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow, is a computer programmer’s best friend. A question-and-answer website for programmers of various needs. Although, you can technically ask any questions on Stack Overflow, any simple or badly phrased questions will most likely be overlooked or even criticized. It is very important to learn how to ask a question as well as appropriate questions in the proper location. Always be precise and informative about your problems. Specifics are always great in a question, it helps the reviewer know how to help.
Example of a Smart Question
Here is an example of a Smart Question on Stack Overflow.
Although it is a simple question that may be searched online for other possible solutions, stack overflow offers a more in-depth answer than a simple Google search. It might not be a complex question but it is still a smart question because of how clear and precise the question is. First, it has a clear goal in mind: To remove a commit in Git. Next, the details are nice additions, instead of saying a vague commit, it asks for the most recent local commit. Last, it also says where it wants it removed from, which is Git. Even though it is simple, it shows how well the question is received on stack overflow by the amount of views, votes, and answers. Most questions that are formatted wrong or stupid will sometimes not even be answered or looked at. This specific question on removing a commit has over 20,000 votes, 100 answers, and 13 million views. It only shows how much people are willing to answer and also how much people are looking for the answers to the same question. Even though you could simply google search the answer to removing a local commit from Git, it wasn’t as clear as stack overflow. After searching through stack overflow, they offer multiple ways of removal as well as in-depth explanations of the different types. For example, on Google, the first search only offers the run of “git reset – Head^”. While stack overflow shows many different ways of removal, such as “git reset”, “git reset – soft”, “git reset – hard”, and much more.
Example of a Not Smart Question
Here is an example of a Not Smart Question on Stack Overflow.
Compared to the smart question example above, this question is obviously a not smart question from the get-go. First, the title is too general. When having a programming issue, it’s best to name as many details as possible so that the receiver can answer as precisely as possible. Just writing “Marching Cubes generating holes in mesh” is extremely vague and hard to know what exactly is the problem. There is no mention of where the code is being used for as well as what it is being used for in the title. Second, once clicking on the question, the user is bombarded with an abundance of information. When posting a coding question, codes with over 100 lines to read over will most likely be looked over. Most people want to know where exactly you think your code is erroring so it is better to offer fewer codes and ask exactly which lines you might have a problem with. Even after sharing a huge block of code, they offer a link for more information with a lot of text to read, which makes it hard for users to answer or even know what exactly is the problem. As a result, there are no answers to this question even though it was posted over 6 years ago.
Conclusion
It is very important in any environment to ask questions. To utilize questions, it is pertinent to know the difference between asking a smart or not smart question. After diving deeper into how to ask a smart question, I have learned some great lessons. When asking a smart question, it is good to be precise, informative, and appropriate no matter what the situation. People also appreciate if you have attempted to look for the answers yourselves first, as it shows you at least tried and care about learning more about the subject matter. I think it is a great skill to be able to ask smart questions and that everybody could learn to incorporate this lesson into their daily life!