kitchen table math, the sequel: how to ask good questions

Monday, April 9, 2007

how to ask good questions

This page seems pretty good:

1. Good questions require thought and research. It is easy to pose a question like "should the atomic bomb have been dropped on Japan?" Such a question is simply an opinion question: it requires no research or special understanding into the problem. One way to begin framing better questions is to steadily add facts into the stew. These complicate your argument, basing it on solid historical premises (which of course you would need to prove in an essay). Think in terms of "givens." For example:
  • Given that the Japanese military establishment had vowed to fight to the bitter end, should the United States have dropped the bomb on Japan?
  • Given that the United States' government was becoming increasingly concerned with post-war struggles with the Soviet Union, should the United States have dropped the bomb on Japan?
  • Given that many in the United States expressed what may be called racist views of the Japanese, and in fact interned Japanese Americans in concentration camps during the war, should the United States have dropped the bomb on Japan?
  • Given that the United States had already embarked on an extensive and deadly campaign of carpet-bombing Japanese cities (like Tokyo), should the United States have dropped the bomb on Japan?
2. Explore premises and make them explicit. The questions above are not quite explicit enough. For example, so what if many in the United States were racist towards the Japanese? What does that have to do with the legitimacy of dropping the atomic bombing?

[snip]

3. Keep going. Even these questions can be further broken down:

  • Did racism lead the U.S. to drop the bomb on Japan when it would not have done so on Germany? How exactly did American views of the Japanese and Germans differ? How could such popular cultural views have influenced a foreign and military policy thought to be rational?

  • [snip]

    As you can begin to see, once you start thinking about it, one simple question can lead to a huge chain of questions. Remember, it is always better to keep asking questions you think you cannot answer than to stop asking questions because you think you cannot answer them. But this can only happen when you know enough about your subject to know how to push your questioning, and this depends on reading and understanding the assigned material.

    4 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    I don't think part 1 is made up of questions. Each question is really a statement disguised as a question.

    Not to say that the process here is bad. Just to say that research leads to facts (relevant statements) which then may inform other questions (part 2. Those questions are good).

    It's easy to get in the habit of putting a question mark (or rising inflection) at the end of every sentence. But if it's not asking for information, it's not really a question.

    Catherine Johnson said...

    The author should re-word his or her opening section.

    Still, this is probably one of the most explicit & detailed descriptions of the process of asking an "informed question" that I've seen.

    Anonymous said...

    There's a saying in Russian, "one stupid person may ask a question that 100 of the most intelligent ones won't answer".
    I require my students in class to think their questions over 3 times before asking. And remind them that their question may demonstate that they DON"T KNOW the material - so I 'll bring down their grade.
    I will definetely bring up "informed questions" issue and re-teach it again in class...

    Catherine Johnson said...

    I require my students in class to think their questions over 3 times before asking.

    That would have been a good one for me!

    My sister had her Asperger's daughter in a social skills group once. One of the goals was to teach the kids to ask follow-up questions in a conversation.

    The kids got a quarter (iirc) if they asked a follow-up question THAT ACTUALLY RELATED TO WHATEVER THE CONVERSATIONAL PARTNER HAD JUST SAID.

    If they popped off with some question totally unrelated to whatever the exchange was about they got docked a quarter.

    I loved that.

    (follow-up questions are a HUGE challenge for kids with big social skills deficits)