Please, Just Ask a Question

After any lecture or presentation there is a time for questions. I generally don’t mind question and answer sessions; people often bring up interesting insights that I hadn’t considered. There is, though, one thing that I dislike about these question sessions. It drives me crazy when people raise their hands during this time and don’t ask a question.

There are two main ways a person does this. One way is when a person asks a question, but not before giving the speaker their own knowledge of the subject and resumé. At the end of a Presidential Lecture series talk, one man with a heavy accent left his seat and stood in front of the microphone. In nearly incomprehensible English he spent several minutes explaining his experience with animal behavior. After describing his own study he finally asked a question. However, the question didn’t relate to the speaker’s presentation at all; the man just wanted to see why her findings didn’t match his own. Similarly, during Professor Rasmussen’s lecture on Christianity and the environment one man in the audience prefaced his question by saying that he had recently attended the national environmental justice conference. This served only to let everyone in the room know how important a person he must be to have attended this important conference. Most of the time people like him just want to brag about how much they know or what they have accomplished.

The second way a person can ruin a question and answer session is by never asking a question at all. One of Professor Rasmussen’s fellow professors took up nearly five minutes of the question time talking about the difference between politics and grass-roots activism. It was great that he cared so much about environmental activism, but we were there to hear Professor Rasmussen speak, not him. I look forward to finally attending a lecture where the audience members ask questions, not give answers.