The Art of Asking a Good Question
30 Jan 2025
Questions
Questions are extremely important in all aspects of life. Asking questions is what allows you to connect with people, learn, and improve in the necessary skills you need in life. Just simply asking questions, for example in a class, is a really good skill to have. Some people may be afraid to ask questions in fear of being looked at as dumb. Many say that there are no stupid questions, so just ask away when you have one. I agree, if you have a question you should always ask someone for help. Most of the time…
Good Questions
In my software engineering class that I am taking at the time of writing this, we are learning about “how to ask questions the smart way”. Although I do believe that when you are trying to learn in class and you have a question for your professor, you should definitely ask any question that comes to your head that you really want answers to. But as an aspiring computer programmer, asking the wrong questions online, in a professional/business setting, and questions about coding can often be looked at as dumb depending on the question. This is why asking good questions is very important.
Before asking a question, people should always try and find the answer before asking, not defaulting to looking for help instantly. Some not so good questions are questions that could be answered after one simple google search. It is also extremely important to be as thorough as possible and provide as much information that you can about the problem you are facing. One example of a bad question could be “Help! My code is crashing on me!”. Even if they inserted a little portion of their code, they did not include necessary information like the coding language that they are typing in, the OS that they are on, etc.
Example of a Good Question
This link of a question asked by a StackOverflow user on StackOverflow is an example of how a good question should be asked. The user starts off with a good explanation of their problem. They said that they’re having trouble accessing a user’s username and UID from their IOS app. They provided lots of information on what they was doing and the software that was used. They say they were using the Discord Dev Portal, the OAuth2 URL Generator, Swift code, Xcode, etc. Even in the tags of the post, they provided lots of information on the problem. All of this allowed another user to look over the problem and help solve it.
Even the user’s response to someone showed the smartness of this person. Prior to the answer of his problem, a different user provided a suggestion as a solution. The user which asked the question responded respectfully and politely. They simply said that they already tried that solution and thanked the other person for trying to help. Being polite and respectful can go a long way.
Example of a Bad Question
This link provides an example of a bad question that was asked. First of all, the user did not even give an introduction to the problem they were facing. They did not give necessary information for people to even begin helping them. Although they have portions of their code posted, they simply threw the problem at the faces at people and basically told them to solve it. The user did not even ask a question. They show pictures of their code and pictures of their output and simply say they need something done. Their question is not formatted and it also comes off as a bit rude.
Conclusion
In conclusion, asking good questions online and in the right scenarios is very important. It can be the deciding factor to whether or not your question will even be answered in the end. Asking bad questions can also paint your image in a bad light, creating a horrible first impression for people online. People online can be anyone. They could be employers, colleagues, and other people that you do not want to think bad of you. Asking good question is a necessary skill to learn in order to succeed in whatever path you choose.