# Contacting an academic researcher by an outsider - Tags: industry, correspondence - Score: 6 - Views: 451 - Answers: 2 - Asked by: user13107 (2,749 rep) - Asked on: Feb 14, 2014 - Last active: Feb 14, 2014 - License: CC BY-SA 3.0 --- ## Question If a person is working in the industry and wants to ask a few questions to an academic researcher (based on a paper published by them), what is the correct protocol to follow? 1. Should they disclose their affiliations right away? Should the academic ask for it right away? 2. Should they say 'I don't want to tell you why I'm asking this for, but can you please tell me so and so'? Should the academic insist on knowing? 3. Any other consideration? --- ## Answer 1 — Score: 17 - By: Pete L. Clark (132,965 rep) - Answered on: Feb 14, 2014 I am not aware of any specific protocol, nor do I think there needs to be. I think that every academic is somehow _responsible_ for the work in their published papers, and that responsibility includes at least some degree of responsiveness to questions about those papers. But, as usual, some ways of going about this will do better in eliciting responses. For me, I would want to know that the person w