Tips: Answering Questions

We wanted to share some tips on how to provide great answers on Askpedia. We've seen a lot of answers and the really great answers seem to share many similar characteristics. Here's a summary of some of the best practices we've seen on providing great answers:

• Provide an Answer based on your Personal Experience
  The most effective answers contain knowledge and wisdom that you have gained from personal experience. This is typically information that isn't available on a web page and it's therefore more valuable than widely available information or conventional wisdom.
• Provide Information from Trusted Sources and Identify your Sources
  It's okay to use a search engine to provide information that is available on the web. Search engines provide a lot of information and if you're good at using all the advanced features to find relevant information, you can always provide a great answer. Just make sure that you cite your sources so that the asker knows the source of the information. Also, you should always credit the original source of the information if you're going to contain excerpts from other web pages.
• Make your Answer Relevant and Focused
  We're all busy so nobody enjoys reading through a long and winding answer to get to the relevant section. Answer the question directly in the beginning and use the rest of the space to support your answer. Providing lots of details is fine, but don't provide details for the sake of making your answer look long and official. Having a shorter, relevant and focused answer will always be much better than a long answer with irrelevant information.
• Request Question Clarification
  Sometimes, it's hard to answer the question if there isn't enough detail. Instead of providing an answer based on limited question details, submit a question clarification request. The asker will be notified and they'll have a chance to provide more details. You will then be notified via your Alerts log when the asker provides additional question details.
• Make your Answer Easy to Read
  Last but not least, it's important to format your answer properly so that it's easy to read. You should try to write in sentences with correct grammar and punctuation. Also, try to break your answer into shorter paragraphs. A single long paragraph can be hard to read through, especially when there are multiple answers for a question.

If you have any other tips on providing great answers, please send them to feedback@askpedia.com. We would love to hear from you!