[xorcist]

I've always tried to encourage the following format for all professional questions of that sort:

"a) I do exactly this, b) expected this outcome, c) but got this instead"

Short and to the point, it's remarkable how much easier it makes things for everyone. I think I got it off usenet at some time.

[jsperx]

I work in healthcare IT and many times have heard an “I’m just a nurse” dodge, and I respond in just this fashion — “Good! Then you have just the skills needed. In fact you don’t even have to diagnose the problem, just document what you did, what happened, and how that differs from what you expected.” It works pretty well.

[michaelcampbell]

This closely mirrors what I expect (and have in the past made this exact template for) in an error/bug report.

* What did you see?

* What did you expect to see?

* What sequence of events led you to see what you saw?

* any other info; (OS, time of day, location, anything that causes you to see something different doing the same thing)