Displaying posts tagged with: guest blogger
November 8, 2010 at 11:42 am

Guest Blogger: What makes a good question?

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Whether you’re a Yahoo! Answers “veteran” or a newbie, after a short time exploring the site you’ll come to realize one of the basic truths of Answers:

In order to receive good answers, you need to provide good questions.

So what makes a good question?

A good question is articulate, to the point, and contains all the necessary information and/or background that the potential answerers need.

Of course, the definition of “relevant” information varies among the different categories, and some questions require specific details… You’ve probably thought of them when you were composing your question.

But just in case, here are some general guidelines:

  • If the question deals with automobile maintenance and repairs, include the make, model and year of the car. Same goes for electrical appliances.
  • If you’re asking for help with the identification of a wild animal or plant, please indicate the corresponding geographical location (country, state or province, etc).
  • Providing a geographical reference is also vital if you’re asking about legal matters or financial issues, such as taxes.
  • Computer problems? Don’t forget to mention your Operating System and software version number. If it’s a hardware problem, then make and model are essential.
  • If you’re looking for help with Physics, Chemistry or Math topics please include the full details of your problem (specific conditions, additional factors, etc.).
  • Asking for recipes? You can mention which units you use (pounds or kilos? Liters or ounces?), thus you’ll avoid getting indications that are harder to understand.

If you remember these recommendations, they’ll help you to get better answers.

The above is based on my personal experience, but I’m just one user. So what about you? From your experience on Yahoo! Answers what are your top tips for getting great answers to your questions?

- Calimecita

Calimecita is a biologist from Argentina, Level 7 and a two-time former Featured User in the Yahoo! Answers UK blog: here and here.

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Jonas
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May 26, 2010 at 11:36 am

Be our guest…be our guest blogger!

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We receive emails regularly from many of you expressing your interest in writing a blog post on the Answers blog.

As much of our success is down to our amazing community members, we want to extend an offer to all you – the opportunity to volunteer a blog post and have it published on the Answers blog!

Have you ever fancied being famous among online Pinoys?  Then this is your chance!  If your blog hits the spot we may even feature it on our sister-blogs in one of the 21 countries where we blog and translate it into some of the 9 languages we operate in.  This is your chance to have your voice heard, and have millions of people read your words!

If that isn’t incentive enough, how about an extra 50 points for each post we publish?

How do I become a guest blogger?

Simple – come up with a suggestion or a full blog post and email it to jonasdelosreyes [at] ymail [dot] com.

However, there are a few tips and rules we’d like you to follow:

1. What should you write about?

    Focus on what would interest the Answers Community.  We are open to any subject area, even if only slightly related to Answers. This could include educational, instructional or informative topics.  Some examples are as follows:

    • Subjects that you may have professional or personal experience in, for example if you have recently planned a wedding, you may want to pitch a topic on “How to organize a wedding?”
    • Or you could pitch ideas based on your personal experience on Answers, such as tips on getting the most out of Answers, things that could be improved, and anything that you would like to share with the Answers community.

    2. Use correct spelling and grammar.  The more understandable your suggestion is, the higher the chance it has to be used or chosen as a possible blog topic.
    3. If you use any Answers content in your blog posts, it should adhere to the Community Guidelines.

    Finally, the legal bit – your blog will be featured on the site in accordance with our TOS.  We reserve the right to translate and make editorial changes to your blog if selected.
    We look forward to hearing from you – jonasdelosreyes [at] ymail [dot] com.

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    Jonas
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