Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

Many years ago, when I was a freshman in college, I purchased an encyclopedia from a door-to-door salesman. I was always a bookworm, so I was very pleased with the purchase, thinking it would save me a lot of library time doing research for my school work. I was an English major, which required many hours in the library. This was well before the Internet. Part of the purchase deal was that I could request a number of research papers from the company. While I was researching for a class assignment, I requested a research paper on whatever the topic was to supplement the other research I was doing. I was very offended by a long letter they sent lecturing me about how I should not use them to do my homework. I was always a good student, and never even considered having someone do my homework.

I was too young to open my mouth and set them straight, but I have never forgotten that. The crux of the problem, of course, was that someone wrongly "ass-u-med" -- you know the axiom -- that I was using their service to do my homework. It would have been simpler and more professional conduct for someone to have contacted me to find out who I am and what I needed the research for.

Has anyone bothered to contact soniamonaco1 to find out if indeed her request for assistance is a homework project? Or are you "assuming" that this is the case? I just don't see any need for the sarcastic and presumptive response she was given. It would have been more humane and certainly less nasty to just not have said anything. Was our esteemed Production Editor influenced by the other person's assumption?

Some years ago, a client's marketing manager asked me a similar question. She had been moved into her company's marketing department because a vacancy had occurred and she had never prepared a brief. Had she written the above question to this forum instead of to me, your responses would have been insulting and very incorrect, and you would have likely lost a member, and anyone else (s)he knows, because you decided to assume and to not ask the simple question: is this a homework assignment?

And even if this were a homework-related question, the question is unanswerable as provided -- which is probably what led you to assume it was a homework assignment. It would have been much more professional and kinder to respond with a question asking for more details. We should be more considerate that there are people for whom English is a second language and who have difficulty expressing themselves. There are others who are looking to this forum to help them in their jobs and entrepreneurial goals and are at a loss concerning marketing and its terminology. Further, any answer to anybody -- even if it is for homework -- is an answer that can be useful to many other people who can use the knowledge in their workplace.