Asking 'silly' questions to doctoral supervisor My doctoral supervisor is very helpful and I really enjoy working with him on various problems. I have officially entered my second year of doctoral research this month. During discussions, I get few basic (probably, 'technically silly' as I would put it) questions that occur to me at times. But, I don't ask these question to him as he might think I am 'dumb' and I lack technical fundamentals. Then, I suffer a lot on the topic by crawling in the books, internet; sometimes I find answers to my questions, sometimes I don't. I get annoyed with myself sometimes.

There are many supervisors and Ph.D. students out here in academia.SE. Could you please suggest me on the following questions:


Should I ask such questions at all during a discussion with him?
How would a supervisor feel about a doctoral student asking such dumb questions? (This part might be opinion-based. I would like to see some experience to interpret my situation.)


Note: The questions are related to the research he has pioneered in. It is not always true that I would find the answers to my so called 'silly' questions by Googling. Many research papers don't even bother to contain such internal details on the topic. The only possibility is either I figure out myself or ask my supervisor.

Some (un)related questions (in different situations and contexts):


How to ask dumb questions
&quot;You are paid to answer my questions!&quot; - how to handle silly questions?
Every PhD student "lacks technical fundamentals" in some respect.  That is why you are a PhD student and not a senior researcher (though they probably lack more "technical fundamentals" than you would guess, also).  You aren't going to trick your supervisor into thinking you know everything by never asking questions that might be "silly".

But learning to find answers on your own is an essential skill, so it's good that you are practicing doing this.  I don't know why you say it is "suffering".

I think a good compromise is to spend a reasonable amount of time trying to find the answer yourself.  If you can't, then ask your supervisor, and mention what you tried or what sources you consulted.  A reasonable PhD supervisor should not "think less of you" for this, and in any case, it's almost certainly better for your supervisor to have an accurate view of what you know.

If you are in the middle of a meeting and you need to know the answer now in order to proceed with a meaningful discussion, then it is reasonable to ask the question on the spot.  Again, it is better to be honest about what you do and don't know, than to potentially waste everyone's time by proceeding with a discussion you don't understand.

If you find yourself spending too much time chasing down answers to random questions, then prioritize them.  It's okay to say to yourself: "This is an interesting question, but I don't need to know the answer right now; let me set it aside and come back to it in the future when I have more time."