This article was co-authored by How.com.vn staff writer, Darlene Antonelli, MA. Darlene Antonelli is a Technology Writer and Editor for How.com.vn. Darlene has experience teaching college courses, writing technology-related articles, and working hands-on in the technology field. She earned an MA in Writing from Rowan University in 2012 and wrote her thesis on online communities and the personalities curated in such communities.
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Do you know the answer to a coding question and want to offer your advice? Stack Overflow gives you a chance to help someone by answering other people's technical questions, and this How.com.vn article teaches you how to do that. This guide will also cover basic formatting and general best practices, plus what to expect when you answer a question on Stack Overflow.
Steps
Answering Questions
- Go to https://stackoverflow.com/questions. You can use any web browser, like Chrome or Safari, to visit this site and answer questions.
- You can sort the questions by newest, active, bountied, unanswered, and more. If you want to browse questions, you'll find more under "Hot Network Questions" on the right side of the page.
- To narrow your results, you can look for specific tags. Tags appear on the right side of the page under "Related Tags." Click More related tags to see more tags.
- Find a question that you think you can answer well. Click on the title of the question (it's blue) that you want to answer. You'll be redirected to that thread.Advertisement
- Read the question and other answers carefully. Figure out if you have any additional, relevant information to add. If not, then answering is not going to be the best action for you to take since repeated or poor answers will result in you getting a negative reputation.
- Fill in your answer in the Answer Box. You can add formatting including bold, italics, links, and images to enhance your answer at the top of the box.
- If you don't see an answer box, your account may have been banned for lots of low-quality or poorly rated answers. To lift the ban, the Stack Overflow system must decide that you have more highly rated and positive reviews than negative ones.[1]
- Sign in or enter the information to post as a guest. When you're finished writing your answer, you'll need to sign in or post as a guest with some pertinent information, like your name and email address.
- Click Post Your Answer. The page will reload and your answer should show up in the next few minutes.
- If you need help formatting your answer visit Stack Overflow's editing help page here: http://stackoverflow.com/editing-help
- Once you have posted your answer, consider finding another question by clicking on a related tag, or re-searching the question page.
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Expert Q&A
Tips
- If the question is asking you to provide some examples of code, test the code in your answer before posting, as there's nothing more embarrassing than posting broken code.Thanks
- If you know someone who might know the answer to a particular question, you can also email, tweet, or Facebook the question directly to them.Thanks
Warnings
- Stack Overflow is a question-and-answer site, not a discussion forum. If you have input on something another user has posted, or want to thank somebody, leave it as a comment instead of posting a new answer.Thanks
References
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