Asking Questions...

Found an interesting, unconventional, unclassified article from the online news channel :)
http://digital.asiaone.com/Digital/Features/Story/A1Story20070922-26448.html

Another 'harsh-but-helpful' article recommended by Alex :)
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

These 2 articles come across to me at different points of time, and they both contain very similar points of discussion.

1. Use of emails
I know it is getting common nowadays. In fact, it is wrong, and a very bad habit. Even for me, I used lots of short-forms or abbreviations, use wrong grammar, use no punctuation, and whatever ways that I know is wrong, but I still did it anyway.

Indeed, it is important to 'write in clear, grammatical, correctly-spelled language', even in emails, and especially for emails. Email seems to have made communication easier, but does email make communication so easy such that we can 'simplified' the way of writing correctly?

Somehow, the beauty of language is being eroded, eroded by what, I don't know, maybe by technology, by the laziness of people, by the lack of time, by being efficient, by... ?

Some quotes...
"I love e-mail but I sometimes wonder if it's made things a bit too easy. If you have to look for paper, write or type on it, then find an envelope, stamp and postbox, chances are, you'd take more care with what actually went into the letter because it'd be a waste of the trouble otherwise.When you use something that needs as little time and effort as e-mail, the temptation is to write without taking either."

"More generally, if you write like a semi-literate boob you will very likely be ignored. Spelling "you" as "u" makes you look like an semi-literate boob to save two entire keystrokes."

2. Do your own research before asking
Sometimes, people just got into this viscous cycle of asking around when they are stuck, without being bother to think calmly, research properly, and attempting to resolve, before shooting questions at whoever experts out there.

Talk about being resourceful, I think they are more resourceful in finding out who to seek help from, than where to seek help for themselves. I think 'who to seek help from' is the last resort to use when all fail.

Perhaps that is what we have been taught, that is, to ask when we don't know. Perhaps we are also getting more reliant on other people, such that we are afraid to take risk ourselves, and we go for the secured, tested, ready-made version, the easy way out.

Some quotes...
"The knowledge that by answering those kinds of e-mail, I'm compounding an unhelpful habit. Every time we want to know something, we slide into our own pattern of asking questions and finding answers. We form this habit as children, taking it unconsciously into adulthood."

"There is an ancient and hallowed tradition: if you get a reply that reads "RTFM", the person who sent it thinks you should have Read The Fucking Manual. RTFM has a younger relative. If you get a reply that reads "STFW", the person who sent it thinks you should have Searched The Fucking Web."

3. Ask smart questions
Indeed, if you need to ask, ask smart questions!

Personally I like receiving questions. I don't mind people asking stupid questions, because I take the chance to improve my explanation skills, and polish my communication skills. By receiving and answering questions, it helps to strengthen my understanding of the topic, make me discover things that I may not know before, and thus learning from there onwards.

Some quotes...
"There's a difference between help and charity - when you ask for something, which are you asking for?"

"Never assume you are entitled to an answer. You are not; you aren't, after all, paying for the service. You will earn an answer, if you earn it, by asking a substantial, interesting, and thought-provoking question - one that implicitly contributes to the experience of the community rather than merely passively demanding knowledge from others."

PS: Pardon me, there may be mistakes in this posting as well, grammatical, spelling, ideas, logic, views, so feel free to 'correct' me ;)