Sir, neither of those are questions, both are instructions

"Can you give your assessment of ..." is no different than 'Talk about ..."


And now that I think about it, the thread title to be grammatically correct should be "Neither of those is a question..."

 

The problem I had with your approach wasn't that it was too general. It was that it was pointed and suggestive. If you say "Why did you focus the offense around XXX" and he doesn't think they focused the offense around XXX, then he can easily take that as being combative or interjecting opinion. By estabilishing his state of mind about the big picture first, you are able to create context for more pointed follow-ups."

That's all I'm saying.

 

Right. You're misreading. I'm asking how YOUR question is more general than mine, which is still asking about the play of one player.

Your question is just as exclusive, just with more opportunity for him to Palin it and talk about whatever he wants to talk about.

 

Because it's ask for HIS observation on the players play without interjecting YOUR observation of his play. In yours, you suggested a conclusion in the question (that he focused his offense around XXX). I'd rather the coach give me his conclusions, rather than combat my suggestions or, even worse, use my suggestions as a crutch.

 

Fair enough. I wouldn't necessarily ask the questions I popped up there. But I certainly wouldn't ask for his "assessment," which was the initial point I was arguing. Now we're off track!

 

considering I spent my first three years in the business asking high schoolers and their coaches actual questions and got an actual response maybe 15% of the time, using "talk about" occasionally over the last year or so has yielded some pretty good results.