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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   2940 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 6, 2022

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So, I'm thinking about writing an email to an academic on their work - I'm trying to pick their brain on a refutation they wrote of another academic's perspectives and want to ask them a few questions about their thoughts on some unaddressed aspects of the paper(s) they were critiquing. I am generally in agreement with the stance of the academic I am emailing (though there are a few points of divergence) and simply want to see what their ideas are.

I suppose my question is if this seems like an appropriate thing to do, especially as a layman not involved in the same field. If so, I'm also wondering how concise or how detailed I should ideally make my initial email.

Do it. Write concisely out of respect for your recipient's time, but the worst that can happen is you get no response.

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