ASKING GOOD QUESTIONS
A.Questions should reflect a careful “looking at the text” inspired by Nathaniel Shaler’s “looking at the fish” (over). Since, as John Dewey said, “We never think until we are faced with a problem,” questions should describe a puzzle or pose a problem that arises from your reading. That is;
(1) they ought not to arise out of the blue, but should reflect the specific contents of your assignment; and
(2)they ought not merely to request information but should reflect your having been troubled, confused, or perplexed by some inconsistency that a specific text or texts in your reading suggests, or by some inconsistency between statements in the text and your ordinary expectations. The most fruitful questions try to make sense of another person’s thinking.
B.Word your question a way that compels your reader too feel the same sense of perplexity that you feel about the problem. Go straight to the heart of what appears so troublesome.
C.Substantiate your troubledness in the question, and likewise the conclusion you reach in your answer by means of inferences drawn from logic, history, and the data of your texts. Personal convictions are only as valuable as your ability to defend them with evidence available to everyone.
D.Avoid asking a question whose answer is already a matter of your own knowledge or conviction and whose statement leaves the impression that the purpose in asking is primarily to provide a pretext for bringing out that conviction or some insight that you think a text possesses.
E.Pinpoint your problem with specific, concrete language. Avoid vague abstractions and generalities. To compel attention sentences must be free of jargon and sufficiently plain that the average person on the street can understand them. (Consult the guide, “Writing Prose.”)
F.Avoid verbosity. A single sentence should ordinarily suffice for question and answer alike.
G.Focus your question on matters that are vital and central to a writer’s line of reasoning. Eschew the trivial. Do not let incidental concerns eclipse what is uppermost in a writer’s own constellation of thought.
H.Be sure your answer responds directly to the question you pose and doesn’t stray off on other errands.
I.Be sure your answer doesn’t merely “beg the question,” i.e. doesn’t merely restate the problem in new words.
J.“Straw-man” questions have no value. If you need only deny the premises of a question to answer it (Are Martians green? Martians don’t exist.), you will learn nothing from asking it.
K.Questions about the way things “are” adopt a naturalistic premise that regularities or laws govern the behavior in question. Most humans recoil from such deterministic premises about themselves and prefer to be viewed as making choices in pursuit of purposes. This is why, in the humanities, our primary business is to “understand” what people are up to rather than to “explain” what causes them to act, or things to be what they are. Note that purposes are ultimately individual, and therefore any inquiry about them remains incomplete if you do not specify whose. In short, make plain by the wording of your question which individual’s purposes are not yet making sense to you.
L.If the person whose purposes you have in view (see ”K”) is God, you are adopting a premise that many of your readers may consider controversial, namely: there is a God who operates with purposes which he communicates directly to any person who cares to listen. Instead make your question accessible to every reader by adopting premises acceptable to any reader (e.g., Isaiah said that God…). Most, for example, would be reluctant to entertain the question, “Why are Greeks better looking than Independents?” on its own terms, even if you yourself happen to think its premise is correct. Make your premises true for everyone by supplying a context: “What was PanHell trying to do by suggesting that Greeks are... ?” There is no need to expect your readers to adopt your theological (any more than your fraternal) presuppositions. Questions that begin: “Why did God...?” can only be answered confessionally. But one can appeal to a broader audience by asking instead: “What is this writer up to in saying that God . . .?” (Distinguish, in other words between the narrative world and the real world.)