Imagine, for a moment, you are friends with two people who had just bought a book that you had recommended to them. Imagine, as well, that you are knowledgable on this book and consider it one of your favorites. One friend has read the book and the other has only read a couple chapters. The friend who has read this book comes to you today with a question on the theme surrounding the main characters arc throughout the story as he is confused by some elements. He explains his interpretation of the writing and inquires on yours. In the end of the conversation, you have increased your friend’s understanding of the material at hand.
The next day, the other friend, the one that had read only a couple chapters, now comes to you asking for spoilers on the book. This friends is straight up asking you for a summation of the book; all despite having the book himself. Appropriately, you are annoyed with this and just tell your friend to read the book. This conversation a couple of seconds and nothing of value was gained on either side.
As you can see, while both of your friends came to inquire with you, one had the common sense to at least read the book while the other simply came to you to ask if you could spoonfeed him/her; a smart question versus a very…not smart question. One question ended being a disscussion, and the other a very short transaction of essentially nothing.
We are taught in elementary, and even all the way into high school, that there is no such thing as a dumb question. And yes I do agree, but only in those environments. As a young child or teen, we are suppose to inquire on the things that we don’t understand, and not be ashamed asking. Asking questions was our main way of learning. But when one finds themselves in the outside world, this rule changes. High school marks the milestone of one’s movement from childhood into young adulthood, which is a place of acting as an individual. And what I mean by that is that in early stages of life, it is alright to ask questions that are very straightfoward and very shallow into the material that you learned. These essentially questions that ask “what” instead of “how”. Questions that can answered with a single word. Now you can ask these questions because teachers in those grade levels are more than willing to make sure that you have understanding of the material.
As individuals, we first must try things ourselves without going straight for the support of others. We have the power to at least attempt to answer our own questions before we must consult someone else. Especially in this age of information, Google tends to be your best friend. Your own research is often the strongest answer and the best form of learning.
Online forums have paved the way to providing a space of insight and discussion. Sites like Reddit allow for communities to have thier own hubs for their professions and interests. StackOverflow is one such forum where developers can ask questions pertaining to problems or misunderstandings that they have. Here is an example of a question that I consider “smart”.
This is a person who has demonstrated that he/she at least attempted to find a solution to his problem on their own. This can be seen through the structure of the question which is filled with bits of code and succinct explanations of the problem at hand. The person asking the question is also helping those who wish to help him/her by supplying information that potential experts can build off from. You can see in the solutions from other users that the effort put in creating the question was not wasted.
Now that we have a grasp of a smart question, don’t be this guy. From the title of the post, right off of the bat you can see that this guy isn’t looking to learn but to get some freebies off of some generous people. This person is vague in what he/she wants the whole entire post is written very poorly. No person who comes across this post would even click on it and for good reason. There is no indication of what the project that this person is working even is, what language is being used, how experienced the poster is, or even if this person takes anything seriously. This isn’t a person asking a question to learn so why should an expert waste their time on a person like that?