I wanted to take a couple of minutes and write down a few suggestions for students asking questions and posting Notebook entries. I want students to get the most value out of their time using italki. So I'm offering these suggestions because I believe and I hope that they'll give you more answers, better-quality answers, and answers that you'll truly be able to learn from and enjoy.

1. If you ask a question along the lines of "is this ok/right/correct?", and then you paste in some snippet of language, then it's hard for people to figure out what you mean by "ok/right/correct". Is it correct from a language point of view (spelling and grammar)? Is it correct in the sense that everyone uses it? Sometimes everyone uses a particular expression or way of speaking even though it doesn't strictly conform to grammar protocols, or doesn't strictly make logical sense. In that case, any yes/no answer is only part of the truth and it could be misleading and unhelpful. Is it correct in the sense of "would people understand me if I said that?". Communication is priority number one in language. Anything else is secondary. So arguably, that's what "ok" means. When you ask a question, make it clear what your standards are: do you want something that's technically correct, natural-sounding, commonly-used, and/or understandable? That way we'll be able to answer your question in a way that's useful to you. And, just as importantly, let us know what you THINK the thing means. It's possible for a word or phrase or expression to be inherently correct. But if we say "yes, that's correct" and then you go ahead and use it to mean something that's not what it means, then we'll have misled you because we didn't know what you THOUGHT it meant.

2. Give context when you ask a question with some example language. Quote a url if you found it on the web. Let us know where you found it, who said it, what was the context that came before (and perhaps after) it. Language can mean different things in different contexts, or have a different significance or nuance. Without that context any answer is going to be potentially wrong or misleading.

3. Read before you send. Dictionaries make it easy to spell words correctly, so do spell-checkers. Reading through what you wrote before you post it is easy, and a great way to catch silly, careless errors. It's also great learning practice for you to scan for, spot, and correct errors, and to just make the effort to do the most basic things correctly. If you use the same word more than once in your post and you can see that you've spelled it differently in different places then you can be certain that at least one of those is wrong. The fact that you didn't read through what you wrote before you posted it indicates how (un)important you consider the question to be. If you make a spelling error in your title then that really stands out. About 10-15% of posts have really easy-to-spot, easy-to-catch, easy-to-fix spelling errors in the title, which indicates that you didn't read before you sent. A lot of people giving answers don't care about that kind of thing. Some people do care. Some people who choose to give their own limited time and knowledge freely to help people, find it more fun and rewarding to focus on students who appear to be serious, and careful, and mindful of what they're doing. You'll see the same filtering phenomenon happening when you send in your mis-spelled resume when applying for a job.

A bonus piece of advice is to regularly read other people's posts. You might see really useful information that teachers have given to other students, and then you'll save that teacher having to say it all over again to you. If you only ever come on to italki, ask your question, read the answers you get, then you might be missing out on good info. Think of italki as a conference, not as a personal helpdesk.

~Steve