As a student, you are often told that there is no such thing as a stupid question. While I agree with this statement because nobody should be afraid to ask for help, there is a small addition that I would like to add. There may be no such thing as a stupid question, but there are some not so intelligent ways to ask a question.
In an essay called “How To Ask Questions The Smart Way”, author Eric Raymond explains much of what the title implies. Raymond very bluntly lays out several tips on how to improve your questions and many of his suggestions highlight one thing: effort. While questions are functionally a way of asking for help, they indirectly can reflect your character. When you ask a question the smart way, you are demonstrating to your audience that you have made an effort to find the solution on your own, but you might just need another pair of eyes to help you out. If you were to ask a question in a not so smart way, you could easily come across as lazy. People are probably more likely to assist someone who wants to assist themself.
Within the context of software engineering, asking a question the smart way might include some sample code that you are using to try to solve a problem along with a brief explanation of your thinking. By providing some of your work so far, you not only demonstrate that you have attempted to solve your problem, but you also reveal to your audience how you are approaching the problem. This is significant because in computer science there is often more than one way to approach a problem. Maybe someone who understands your question can provide a different perspective on how to find the solution.
There are several real examples of questions asked the smart way and the not so smart way on Stack Overflow. One example of a question that has been asked the smart way (which can be found here) deals with two different ways to append something to a list. The user is wondering which of the two ways has a better time performance. This particular user provides the code that he is using to compare the time it takes to run each of the two approaches to appending something to a list as well as his results from the test. He ran his tests several times and each trial yielded different results which is why he is asking for assistance. This question has definitely been asked the smart way because he has clearly demonstrated that he attempted to solve the problem on his own. On the other hand, another user asked if he could live stream video in a JAVA program from a camera he recently installed (found here). This is an example of a question asked the not so smart way. While the user does state that he knows how to configure a camera that is on WIFI, he does not really give us any indication that he actually tried to find a solution on his or her own.