Is it OK to ask questions that don't show any research?

Question

Examples: - Can MRI scans be dangerous for one's health?:

Can MRIs have any deleterious effect on one's health? Or would it be safe to have say 5 MRIs per year?

• Inferring vitamin D level from levels of parathyroid hormone, vitamin B6 and calcium:

Given a blood test that contains the levels of parathyroid hormone, vitamin B6 and calcium, how to infer the level of vitamin D?

Is it OK to ask questions that don't show any research?

I am aware of What kind of research is expected here before asking questions? but the questions and answers there mostly focus on posting on Sketipcs vs posting here.

Answer 1

To improve your chances of getting an answer, you need to demonstrate that you’ve taken enough time to thoroughly search for an answer before asking your question. This saves the site from reiterating obvious answers and helps to get a more specific and relevant answers.

In other words, your should give enough details and context (highlighting exactly what you need), so it can answerable and can produce valuable and good answers.

Here are few highlights from this post to better understand this:

• When I ask for effort, what I'm really looking for is a starting point, some context for where the problem actually exists. Without that, it's like trying to diagnose engine trouble over the phone.
• Effort leads to much more interesting questions.
• The "effort" isn't just effort towards solving the problem, it's also effort towards making the problem easier to solve for whoever reading the question.
• Lack of research effort leading to countless duplicates.
• Lack of effort describing the problem, leading to unclear and misleading questions.
• Lack of presentation effort, leading to hard to read questions.
• The three step: effort of providing context, stating the problem clearly, and explaining why obvious solutions don't work was just useful for me.
• The amount of effort by the asker is not a good indication of a good question.

For more detailed explanation, please refer to help pages:

• How do I ask a good question?
• What types of questions should I avoid asking?
• Should Stack Overflow (and Stack Exchange in general) be awarding “A”s for Effort?
• Do we need a close reason for zero-effort questions?

Answer 2

On top of listing what you have read on the subject so we know what you have read so far and may not quite understand, another reason for asking for evidence of prior research is that there can be assumptions made within the question which do not hold true within medical science.

If another reader takes those assumptions as fact, that can cause confusion for them too when learning.

Just as expected in answers, if you make a claim to know something, please provide some evidence to back it up.

Answer 3

I think it's fine to post questions that don't show any research, only if:

• it's equally fine to choose to ignore them
• it's equally fine to choose to downvote them
• it's equally fine to choose to comment asking the OP to improve them
• it's equally fine to ultimately close them when they have been hanging around with downvotes long enough to be clutter on the site
• it's equally fine to use them as examples on meta of the kinds of questions that are considered poor

If the possible reactions to this option are in any way objectionable, then it just shouldn't be done.

I've said it before, so I'm aware that I'm repeating myself here, but I'm certainly not interested in answering such a question unless I have some special interest in the topic.

To answer your supporting arguments each in turn:

-the best majority of the ~800 questions posted here so far don't show any research

This is called a red herring. It means nothing except that a lot of questions show no research effort.

• as a patient it is sometimes difficult to know where to start looking for trustworthy information

If someone can find an SE site and figure out how to post a question, they probably know how to google something, or explain why they can't.

• it might be better to state a simple question rather than adding some unreliable sources in the question.

Every mistake is an opportunity to learn. If someone really believes in a source and goes to the effort of posting it, I think that's still a better question.

As Hercules said, the gods help those who first at least try to help themselves (that's a paraphrase of his actual mythological words.) Not that answerers are gods or anything. We're all only human.

Answer 4

Unlike other StackExchange subjects, here the subject matter itself (i.e. the patients) show up from time to time. Doctors don't usually turn patients away who ask questions about their conditions for lack of research.

Answer 5

It is fine. It's often clearer to state a question focusing on specifying the problem, and have answers bringing the research, as Skeptics does, for example.

Questions without research here are not the same as Gimme teh codez questions on SO, as the latter just ask for a solution to be copy-pasted without trying to understand what's going on.

On a more pragmatic note:

• the vast majority of the ~800 questions posted here so far don't show any research
• as a patient it is sometimes difficult to know where to start looking for trustworthy information (and a lot of it is behind pay-wall)
• it might be better to state a simple question rather than adding some unreliable sources in the question.