How to ask questions Tip 12 – Ask your question before the topic changes

How to ask a question, tip number 12: Ask your question before the topic changes. If you're in a conversation and the topics are likely to move from one to another, if you have a question, make sure you ask it before the conversation has shifted to a second, third, or whatever the new topic happens to be. If you don't do this, by the time you ask your question, what you're going to be doing is asking the person who's speaking or the audience to go back and consider the original topic and shift the their mindset back to whatever the first topic was, answer, ask and answer the question, have that bit of the conversation, and then come back to whatever the conversation had moved on to. This can be quite disruptive for the people involved, and it's much harder mentally for people to shift back and forth between those topics. It's much easier if you ask your question when the topic is being discussed. So how do you do this? Well, it'll depend on the situation and the setting. Perhaps there will be a formal question and answer period you're in a presentation or teaching situation. If you're in an informal conversation, just ask your question, wait your turn. If you're not sure on the precedent, maybe it's a hands-up type situation. There are lots of different ways in which you can indicate that you have a question to ask. But the key thing is to not wait until the very end of all the topics and then ask your questions. The key is to ask your question when the topic is being discussed and before the conversation moves on to something else.