Asking the Right Question

These problems cannot always be attributed to the owner. An industrial client is not usually a regular developer of buildings, which are, in most cases, secondary to whatever process or production facility he wishes to construct. He is, after all, not engaged in the construction industry on a day-to-day basis. He should be entitled to expect good advice from the team he appoints, and to expect them to ask the right questions. But whatever the project, and however limited the owner s resources, it is vital that he is able to provide the necessary input to ensure that he gets what he wants. 

Although these two aspects are completely different, instructors will typically gauge your understanding of the principles by testing your ability to solve problems. So you must master both aspects of the course. The principles are in your lecture notes, but you must discover how to solve problems. Most students have a difficult time with this task. In this book, we explore some step-by-step processes for analyzing problems. There is a very simple habit that you must form immediately learn to ask the right questions. 

In fact, in any profession or trade, the first step of diagnosing a problem is always to ask questions. Let s say you are trying to decide if you really want to be a doctor. There are some tough, penetrating questions that you should be asking yourself. It all boils down to learning how to ask the right questions. 

The secret of science is to ask the right question and it is the choice of problem more than anything that marks the man of genius in the scientific world ... 

Fig. 7.2 Informative design - asking the right question The most efficient means for a player to guess the correct number from 1 to 16 is a divide and conquer" strategy. However, this requires that the player ask questions in sequence and wait for an answer before asking the next. Informative design asks specific questions so that when they are answered simultaneously, the player is led to the answer. In this example, the questions are compounds either possessing (denoted by 1) or lacking (denoted by 0) a specific pharmacophore. Once the compounds are assayed, a single outcome is found to be consistent with activities and the corresponding pharmacophore is found.

Questioning can be a valuable technique. By asking the right questions at the correct moments the therapist can help the client to be much more concrete and specific in the things that he says. The therapist can phrase questions in certain ways in order to help the client provide information which is as concrete as possible. This is most important when the therapist is making an inventory of client s drug use. 

To paraphrase Tizzard, the secret of innovation in the chemical industry is to ask the right questions, and it is the choice of the right market opportunity more than anything else that drives the speed of innovation. Identifying the unmet or latent needs in the marketplace and then bringing the full power of basic or fundamental research to bear on the specific opportunity delivers results. 

Am I asking the right questions to improve my fundamental understanding of a scientific problem often enough ... 

None of the accidents described here occurred because knowledge was lacking on methods of prevention they occurred because no one saw the hazards, nor asked the right questions. 

Synthesis research has caused a number of people to organize their approach to process design. People now ask the right question about design even if the answers as yet are lacking. How does one locate the best structure for a process How does one teach another person to do synthesis ... 

Abramson and Starfield (2005) asked the right question in their article titled The Effect of Conflict of Interest on Biomedical Research and Clinical Practice Guidelines Can We Trust the Evidence in Evidence-Based Medicine Their answer is no. In reality, so-called evidence-based medicine is a concept largely owned by drug company advocates who are trying to compel the use of their patron s products. Abramson and Starfield referred to a British House of Common s report that found that approximately 75% of clinical trials published in The Lancet, the New England... 

Like a detective who arrives at the scene of a crime, if you look carefully and ask the right questions (who, what, when, where, how, and why), you re on your way to really comprehending what you read. 

Borden points to Professor Roald Hoffmann as a great influence on the way he does science. Roald s early papers, which relied exclusively on Extended Hiickel theory, taught me that critical interpretation of calculations is even more important than their numerical accuracy. The key to Borden s success in computational chemistry can be summarized by his statement You need to ask the right question and use the right tools to get the right answer. However, the goal of calculations is not just numbers it s the interpretation that really matters. ... 

Browne, M. N. Keeley, S. M. Asking the Right Questions A Guide to Critical Thinking, 5th ed., Prentice Hall New Jersey, 1998. 

Nature only reveals her secrets if we ask the right questions and listen, and listening in geochemistry means sampling, analyzing, plotting. (Werner... 

Earthly and heavenly motions were of great interest to Newton. Applying an acute sense for asking the right questions with reasoning, Newton formulated three laws which allowed a complete analysis (mathematical) of dynamics, relating all aspects of motion to basic causes, force and mass. So influential was Newton s work that it is referred to as the first revolution in physics. 

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