Skip to main content

Go beyond the answer

A great answer doesn’t just state the answer to the question. It seeks to educate the asker of the question where there was previously confusion or lack of context.

Clarify misunderstandings​

Attempt to clarify any misconceptions from the question. If there was an incorrect statement or assumption in the question, copy and paste it into your answer, cite it with a blockquote, and go on to explain what was wrong with it. This goes a long way to help the asker improve their understanding of the problem. This might help others in the future struggling with the same thing.

Show example code​

Sometimes a simple answer isn’t enough to get the point across fully. You can boost the helpfulness of your answer by modifying the code provided in the question and showing how it should be changed to work correctly. This is sometimes more helpful than the explanation itself, but you shouldn't just show code in your answer. Your answer should also have an explanation, otherwise it might get deleted.

Cite supporting documentation​

It’s good to answer a question correctly, but it’s even better to back that up with helpful resources. Link back to any documentation or open-source code that supports your answer, and cite the relevant content from it. There are two reason for this:

  • It lends more authority to your answer, as it’s very difficult to disagree with statements made by the creators of the software in use. Some people even ask for this explicitly when commenting on your answer.

  • It points the readers toward more information and resources that they might not be aware of, helping them even further.

When building a link to documentation, you should look for a link target that gets the reader as close as possible to the relevant information, especially if you are citing text or code from it. Many documentation sites have subheadings that are directly linkable using a hash (#) in the URL to identify it.

When citing text, you should use a blockquote to format the text to make it clear that they are not your own words. You should also add additional commentary of your own, otherwise the answer might get closed.