Ask Questions in The Smart Way

Please check this website, it is useful to deal with problems you will face in your graduate student career and even useful after you leave school.

SSCCE (Short, Self Contained, Correct (Compilable), Example, http://sscce.org/ )

I saw an article in a Chinese forum couple days ago, please check:

http://bbi.com.tw/pcman/Soft_Job/1GNAmybe.html

In this article, it mentioned:

Many engineers are complaining about the problems their boss giving to them, which are very difficult to solve. Sometimes there is no clue. However, you should tell yourself- it is normal you don't understand the question. It is normal you don't know how to find out the solution.

The most important thing is If there is a solution, how could you find it out?

There are several key issues:

1. You don't even know what is the question? If so, please try to find it out. Try to discuss and clarify the definition of this question. You need to be able to spend 30 secs to clearly describe the situation.

2. You are afraid of asking question, or you don't know what question you should start with.

Discussing with people and colleagues will be useful. However, you need to be able to describe it clearly first.

3. You don't know how/where to find the useful information. you need to learn what is the key word you should type in Google when you try to search info. Not just use Chinese only, Eng info is much more than Chinese.

4. Try to take a rest if you are tired. Take some time, and try to learn something new. Maybe you will come up some new ideas later.

If you want to learn how to ask question,

1. Think carefully about your question. Don't just put bunch of data on your boss' desk, and ask him what should I do. If you can not let your boss know what help you need from him, he can not help you at all.

2.Try to answer your own question first. Sometims you will find out the answer is clear and simple in front of you. If you asked other's help, you hsould let them know what approaches you already tried.

3. Respect others' time. If you respect others' time, people are willing to answer your question.

There is another Chinese article discuss how to ask the meaningful question:

http://www.chweng.idv.tw/smart-questions.php

Good luck.