Introduction

When a friends of mine ask me for help with some CSS, a regular expression, or a Python script, it can take a while for me to figure out what  the problem is. Why? Because they don’t ask questions properly. Being able to ask questions properly accomplishes two things:

• Your question is more likely to be answered more quickly.
• The person you’re asking gets less frustrated. A less frustrated person is also more able to answer your questions.

So, asking questions well is an important skill to learn. But how do you do it?

How to ask good questions

1) Don’t come up with your own solution, and then ask if your solution already exists.

One of my friends, new to cascading style sheets, asked me a question if a certain HTML tag existed. I didn’t actually understand why in the world he would think such a tag existed until he described to me what his problem was. I told him what his problem was and how to use CSS to fix it.

A lot of time was wasted when I was trying to decipher his original question. If that friend had not jumped to the conclusion that an HTML tag had to exist to fix the problem, we could have saved some time in finding the solution to his problem.

2) Be descriptive.

This shouldn’t even need to be on the list. It’s so obvious, yet why do so many people disobey this one?

3) Be extra careful in phrasing your question.

You should be careful when phrasing your question to avoid any misunderstandings. Use the best spelling and grammar that you are capable of, and something big to watch out for is misplaced modifiers.

Using good grammar also makes you look more professional, which is always a bonus.

4) Use a search engine.

On forums, IRC, and other places where you can ask questions, you are often told to use a search engine like Google or the forum’s search.

Now, there are some things that Google just doesn’t work well for searching. You should still try to gain some knowledge about the topic that you are asking about as that will make it easier to understand a complex answer.

5) Make sure that you understand the answer.

Remember in the first tip where I talked about my friend learning CSS? I made sure to explain the CSS that would fix his problem. Why? If I didn’t, he would come back later to ask the same question.

If your question-answerer doesn’t make sure that you understand the answer, ask for clarification.

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Also: 100th post!