Do authors respond to emails with questions about their papers?
Hi
When reading papers, I often find myself asking questions like “Why did they not do that additional analysis?“ or “Why did they not inlcude a variable X in the regression?“ (as everyone I assume). Usually such questions are about minor details and I don’t think too much about it. But occasionally, they seem very important to me. For instance, when I believe a crucial variable was omitted in one of the main regression.
Do you think it makes sense in these cases to email one of the authors and ask them about it? Will they even bother to answer?
I guess it would be a waste of time and I shouldn’t do it. But maybe someone will say the opposite and this is actually a way to get to know future co-authors (?)
Extra question: Is the probability of getting an answer higher or lower when I point out that I am a student and making clear that the question is out of pure curiosity?
Assume I am talking about papers that are about still-hot topics, in decent journals, not very old etc.