Mdthbs

I am a non-student/private citizen and I am eager to meet with professors at universities in my area so I can ask these professors a particular question about a particular subject matter. I want to ask them the same question to see if they all will give me the same answer. Based on their answers, I will then decide whether or not to pursue writing an article to be published which relates to this particular subject matter.

I have sent emails to six local universities requesting a meeting with a professor in this particular area of study and so far I have only received one e-mail reply. In that one email reply, the professor suggested that I meet instead with one of their graduate students because his consultation fee is very high. I am still waiting for the professor to provide me with the names of these grad students.

I have decided to wait at least a week before sending follow-up e-mails, or perhaps calling them directly to ask for an appointment, because I realize that professors are busy people.

At this point, I am beginning to wonder if college professors, in general, like answering questions from non-students/private citizens. Is it safe to say that professors, in general, would prefer that non-students/private citizens seek answers from subject matter experts in the private sector?

As in general, people are typically happy to be asked to exercise/express their expertise on the things they've worked their whole lives to understand.

But/and the most expert people are very busy, working on moving forward in that.

So their time is very valuable.

So an email response is much preferred, typically. The email back-and-forth, to arrange a physical meeting, is not preferred...

And if I, for one, found out that my opinion as a professional whatever was just supposed to be one vote out of some larger number... for the potentially misguided project of an amateur... I'd most likely not agree to spend the time. It's disrespectful, whatever you feel about that, for non-experts to think that the time of experts is at their disposal in this way, for free, etc. Be serious.

Many academics are kind and generous, but like to have just a token of respect and appreciation (rather than big bucks).

Most researchers I know - including myself - are happy to discuss honest questions from the public. What most researchers do not particularly like, is to be part of a session where the asker either has a hidden agenda (why don't you just ask your question in an email?) or does not put any value to the time put into doing such sessions (do you really need to ask multiple professors? To me, that approach would put you directly in the spam category).

I would suggest that you simply write the question directly to the professor suggesting you to meet up with the grad student, and possibly ask him/her to forward it.

STOP. If you have an agenda (such as asking and comparing answers) this will be rapidly known, especially if you limit yourself to a single university.

Please read a lot of relevant literature before contacting anyone: if you are not current with the literature changes are your meetings will be very short and you will be ignored as yet another crackpot amateur. Bear in mind that your chances of successfully publishing as a non-student/private citizen are extremely small.