My brother told me my 'ask anything' questions were too vague to get good answers

He said, 'You just ask 'what's the best way to learn guitar?' and get generic advice. Try asking 'what's the first song you learned on acoustic after three months of practice?'' I changed my next post to ask for the first specific coding project people built after finishing a Python tutorial. Got seven detailed replies with project names and links in an hour. How do you make your questions specific enough to get past the obvious answers?

3 comments

3 Comments

susan_wright3413d ago

Yeah, that's a good start. But honestly, I'd skip asking for a time frame like 'after three months.' People learn at such different speeds, so that part can still trip you up. Just asking for someone's first real project is specific enough.

gavinb9713d ago

Remember a buddy of mine who got totally stuck on that exact thing. He kept asking about "six month projects" and couldn't figure out why the answers were all over the place. One person's six-month project was a simple website, another's was a full app. He finally switched to just asking for the first real thing they built to solve a problem, like you said susan_wright34, and the answers instantly made way more sense. It cut through all the noise about how fast someone learned and just showed what they could actually do. That small change in the question gave him a much clearer picture of someone's hands-on skill.

taylor1213d ago

Exactly right. My team used to ask about "first projects" and got a huge range, from basic scripts to full tools. Asking specifically for something built to fix a real problem filters out the practice work.