Questions tagged [answering-questions]
On handling questions from students or from the audience of a lecture, seminar, thesis defense, or other presentation.
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How do I avoid answering too many questions?
Often in class, professors will ask questions to the class. Usually, I'll at least think I know the answer to the question, so naturally I want to answer it.
The problem is that my hand shouldn't ...
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Empirical method without any solid theoretical background
I am working on a paper after peer review and struggling to address one of the comments that states "empirical method without any solid theoretical background". It is a paper about machine ...
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Asking questions in class: how can I "exit" a Q&A when I haven't really understood?
I'm an undergrad and I tend to learn better when I understand the concepts behind things instead of rote repetition. As a result of this, I often have questions.
There are times when I don't ...
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How to respond to uncertainties of students in the following context
Suppose I am the only instructor for the Algorithms and data structures course in my institute. Before the start of the course, say during the first lecture, I provide the students with the textbooks ...
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How should I handle students who ask questions that are "beyond the scope of the course" as a TA
One of the most common replies I have gotten as a student in engineering is the phrase "what you are asking is beyond the scope of this course". But I always found it a bit funny coming from the prof ...
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What are modern channels for clarifying student uncertainty online? [closed]
One of the primary tasks of professors is communication with their students. Communication typically involves lecturing, clarifying uncertainties, and receiving feedback. Lecturing happens at fixed ...
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Is it a proper etiquette to restrict questions from conference presentation only?
Until now, I never engaged in presenting a conference paper. In the near future, I may likely need to give a seminar on a conference paper. In order to gain knowledge about conference presentations, I ...
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How to balance lecture participation and not being considered a show-off?
I am a student in a rather small (20-40 students) lecture. This lecture is mandatory for the students of this subject in this semester. In the course of the lecture the professor regularly asks ...
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What to do about fellow student that hogs lecture time with many questions
I am in a master's program, and one of my peers in the program is in two classes with me. He is a nice person, but he tends to ask a lot of questions in lectures; both of which are very large, and ...
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How to deal with students asking very incremental questions?
I'm a TA/grader for an online course in introductory programming. We have students ask us questions related to homework/labs/etc. on Piazza where we can have quick back-and-forth with questions and ...
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How to handle relevant, but disruptive, questions
I've seen on this site several posts about how to handle silly or "trolling" questions, but I recently faced the opposite situation. Several students in a class I'm teaching continuously bring up ...
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How should you respond when a professor answers your question with "It's obvious!"?
I had a math question and I went to my professor's (now a professor at Harvard) office hours (this was a really long time ago). I asked him and he said, "It's obvious!" I sort of said, "...
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Student asking too many questions without trying themself
I work at a bootcamp where I teach programming. I have a student in my class who would ask 1 question every minute. This student would ask about every single thing like where to add this code and how ...
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What are strategies for minimizing student questions during exams?
Context: I am an assistant professor of mathematics at a small liberal arts college in the US.
I generally find student questions during tests and quizzes to be somewhat annoying. I disliked them ...
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What should I do if I don't know the answer to a question posed by a student?
If I am the TA for a class, what should I do if a student asks me a question which I can't answer? While "tell the truth and say you don't know" is one approach, are there other options?
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What does "covering your variables" mean as a thesis defense question?
I'm looking into lists of questions that I might encounter in my MSc thesis defense. One such list is Tamer Suggested: Top 60 Questions Frequently Asked During Thesis Defence. Some of the questions in ...
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As a professor, what do you do when you are unable to answer a student's question?
As a PhD student, I want to be a professor in less than a decade, and I have a fear that I may never be able to learn enough to answer all kinds of questions you can get asked in a classroom you are ...
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How to deal with a student who most likely has a mental condition, and keeps arguing with me in class?
I am a TA for an introductory computer programming course at a university in the US. There is one student in particular who, during lecture, will argue with me about every point I make, which eats up ...
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Is it normal to have a bad feeling after asking questions?
I am a postdoc in math who defended his Ph.D. a year ago. I have 4 papers where three of them were written by me(only author). From time to time, when I don't understand some part of a paper, I send ...
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Is it ok to take the help from others in solving the type of tasks discussed here in long-term working environment?
There are several types of tasks in academia. Some may be simple and some may be complex in nature. Although some tasks are very simple for many, they can be quite complex for me. If those tasks are ...
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How are other graduate students able to think on the spot during lectures or talks?
So this happened to me multiple times.
Scenario 1: I'm sitting in a lecture or listening to a talk (STEM related) which is more or less aligned with my background (so I know the big picture), and then ...
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When to take questions during a thesis defense?
I am going do do my thesis defense next week.
I am not nervous.
On the contrary, I am so over-relaxed that my instincts tell me this will cause a problem during my defense.
I am not sure when to take ...
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Is supervisor bound to clarify the technical queries of a Ph.D. researcher?
Summary: are PhD advisers obligated to help with technical questions / tasks that PhD student is trying to solve?
This question arose due to my confusion regarding the role of a Ph.D. supervisor.
I ...
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How to deal with professor who is ignoring my questions? [duplicate]
I am studying data mining in a college in Nepal. In Nepal, students and teachers communicate using Facebook Messenger. Teachers don't share email, and are instead friends with students on Facebook.
I ...
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Professors/Teachers only replying to part of my email
I've been a Computer Sciences student for 4 years now, give or take, and my experience with emailing teachers/professors (teachers from now on) has been either of two cases:
they reply to my entire ...
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Can I use a fake email address for asking simple questions to experts?
I am a postdoc in math. From time to time, I have some simple questions, which I believe most graduate students know in their field. So, I email specialists to ask them. I sometimes noticed that ...
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How can I politely tell a student that I already support him several times and that is enough?
I have a student who sends me emails twice a week showing me his updated dissertation. At first I supported him a lot. But he literally does what I say word by word and never goes beyond what I tell ...
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What would be the correct response if a teacher gives you their own answer without explaining or giving any indication that you are wrong?
It's not the first time that it has happened to me, but I think many times, tons of times. I'm a bachelor's student with Physics as the major. Let me tell you about today's incident:
So we were taking ...
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How to tell someone, that someone else "can"not answer a question I asked multiple times?
I work at a unversity in the physics department. Since quite some time, I have a very specific question regarding some equations and how they were rearranged into some result. I have asked my ...
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Europe Etiquette : Should I reply to a reply?
When asking a question to a professor, I wonder if I should reply to his answer if I have no other questions with "Thank you for your kind answer professor". I guess this is the polite thing ...
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When can asking a question during lecture be offensive?
During my masters, I used to ask a lot of questions in class and during the lecture. Whenever I had a doubt I used to ask questions. It was my habit which my undergraduate teachers inculcated in me ...
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What are the steps I need to take when an author won't answer clarification questions?
I have recently read a paper in the Journal of Empirical Finance.
I was interested in the methodology that the author was using, but in terms of the data collection, the writing was particularly brief ...
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is it normal to work as an university professor in engineering but have no real professional experience (in the industry)?
I work as a university assistant professor, I teach engineering-related subjects.
However, I have no real professional experience in engineering (in the industry), I've never worked as an engineer or ...
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How can I encourage students to ask questions in class
In my field (as in many others), students are assigned articles or textbook chapters to be read as preparation for classes (i.e. the whole class has to read the same set of texts). I encourage my ...
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Useful strategies for answering "dumb" questions in a talk?
It has often been said that there is no such thing as a dumb question. And yet - perhaps due only to inattention, lack of sleep, or hunger - otherwise brilliant people sometimes manage to ask some ...
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What's the best way to deal with questions that I don't understand because of accent during/after a talk?
You can prepare a talk from a to z, know exactly what you are going to say and how (and this is even more important when English is not your first language and your skills are not top-notch) - but ...
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Good multiple choice question for education
I'm new to academia SE and I'm not sure if this question fits here, but I think this is the best place I can ask. Please let me know if this question doesn't fit here and suggest me better place to ...
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How can I relate my undergrad works to professors research areas?
Recently, a professor answered my email for a graduate position. He asked me to tell him to what extent I am aware of his research. I have a background research experience in his research area, I can ...
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Professor answers a question wrong, how significant? [closed]
I have a university professor in an operating systems class who point blank told me in writing that in the linux operating system, kernel race conditions cant/dont happen. After pressing him he ...
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How do I write long answers? [closed]
I am a Material Science and Engineering major.What I am having doubt with is how I am supposed to write long answers.Lets say someone asks,"What is a Lomer Cottrell barrier?" or may be,"What is solid ...
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How to ask dumb questions
I am having trouble asking questions in seminars, conferences, and public talks.
As a graduate math student I often fail to keep up with speaker and more mature members of the audience at events like ...
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What to do with students coming to office hours asking to check their homework?
As a teaching assistant (TA), how to handle the situation where a student comes to office hours asking to check their homework? I.e. the student hands in their solution to the homework and ask the TA ...
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How to encourage students to answer their peers' questions
We have a forum in which students can ask questions about the course material, homework exercises, etc. Usually I answer all the questions. I want to encourage students to answer some questions too.
...
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Would a question that requires an amount of text to explain be good to send?
From Is it appropriate (as a PhD student) to email other researchers asking about some details in their papers?, I get that generally you will get answer if you ask question on their work. But what if ...
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What is the proper way to reach out to a university with an academic question as a layman?
I am a layman with a series of questions regarding chemical engineering. I'd prefer to contact my alma mater and contact someone there - is there a protocol for doing that? Is this an unusual thing?
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How to overcome fear of answering/asking questions in big class
Maybe it's because I'm a very shy person, but whenever I am in a big classroom setting (lecture), I am too afraid to raise my hand and ask questions or answer questions in class. It's really odd to me ...
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Violated academic integrity on an online coursework. What do I do?
basically I was working on the answers with my friend and didn’t realize the questions were slightly different and therefore I used the answers we got that were based off of hers to mine. I am scared, ...
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Secondary Research Questions in a Master Thesis, where to answer?
My question concerns the placement of secondary research questions (SRQ) within a Master Thesis for a Software Engineering program.
Currently I describe my primary research question in a chapter on ...
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How to immediately show group answers onscreen?
I teach at a university, and during lectures I would like to pose a question to all the students in which each student types their answer into their laptop, submits to me, and I can show all the ...
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How to answer questions in a conference talk that I should know the answer to, but don't?
In a few days, I will be giving my first conference talk. I have only spent less than a year in the field, and the talk will be attended by several well-known researches, who are familiar with all of ...
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