If a very minimal answer is helpful, emphasize that this is the case. For example, if I’m emailing an expert on some topic I don’t know very much about, I will add something like “I would be grateful for any direction on this, even if it’s just the names of some relevant authors”
In my experience, people are often pretty good at putting together a low-cost-to-them, but highly-valuable-for-me answer. For example, they’ll say something like “This was well-studied by <names> several years ago, but basically the answer is <one or two sentence response that lacks details and might be a bit high-context for me, but is nonetheless helpful>”
If there’s a succinct way to convey your background, this can make it easier for the person to write a short response that is useful to you (though this can quickly go against 8, if you’re not careful). For example, I once emailed a guy who studies bird aerodynamics and after explaining my question, I added the context that I have a PhD in physics. He gave me a very short, but very helpful answer that was only possible by using some physics jargon.
As an elaboration on 5:
If a very minimal answer is helpful, emphasize that this is the case. For example, if I’m emailing an expert on some topic I don’t know very much about, I will add something like “I would be grateful for any direction on this, even if it’s just the names of some relevant authors”
In my experience, people are often pretty good at putting together a low-cost-to-them, but highly-valuable-for-me answer. For example, they’ll say something like “This was well-studied by <names> several years ago, but basically the answer is <one or two sentence response that lacks details and might be a bit high-context for me, but is nonetheless helpful>”
If there’s a succinct way to convey your background, this can make it easier for the person to write a short response that is useful to you (though this can quickly go against 8, if you’re not careful). For example, I once emailed a guy who studies bird aerodynamics and after explaining my question, I added the context that I have a PhD in physics. He gave me a very short, but very helpful answer that was only possible by using some physics jargon.