Homework Help

Email to a friend with a personal message

Barbara J. Feldman

When you've googled till your fingers are numb, and all your searching still hasn't provided an answer to your homework question, it's nice to know that there are real people out there who can help. Here's the scoop on teachers, librarians, experts, authors, and fellow students who will answer your most perplexing homework questions via email, forums, and web chat.

All Experts: Homework Help

5 stars

Calling themselves "the oldest and largest free Q&A service on the Internet," All Experts boasts a network of a thousand question-answering volunteers. Find an expert by navigating through the subject directory. Clicking on your topic (such as Geography or Spanish), you'll be presented with an annotated list of volunteers. Each expert has a profile with ratings and comments from previous question askers, so you can choose your volunteer based on past performance.

PATH: Pupils Ask, Teachers Help

3 stars

Via email, live chat or message boards, PATH provides three ways to ask to a volunteer teacher for help. The message boards are divided into separate forums for different grade levels and subject areas. The busiest forum sections are High School Math and College Physics, but elementary grade subjects are listed first, so be sure to scroll down to your proper level. The boards are quite well moderated, and off-topic posts are minimal.

Pitsco's Ask an Expert

5 stars

Ask an Expert is a yellow-page directory of experts, listing more than three hundred volunteers able to answer questions on topics from artificial intelligence to zoo keeping. Click your way through twelve categories to find your subject matter (for example, under Science and Technology I found three geologists). To avoid bothering the volunteers with repeat questions, you should first review each expert's website, where you just might find the answer you are looking for. If not, you can email your question directly to the expert.

RefDesk: Ask the Experts

3 stars

Wouldn't it be wonderful if your class could submit questions to a real astronomer while studying the solar system? Or how about an entomologist to answer your bug questions? This site contains the Web addresses of sixty experts who are willing to answer questions, as well as seventeen sites that support hundreds more. It is not as extensive a list as the Pitsco site, but it is a good starting point.

Yahoo! Answers: Homework Help

3 stars

Yahoo! Answers provides a point-based platform for asking and answering questions. This page is the Homework Help section, but there are dozens of other topic categories as well. To ask a question, all you need a free Yahoo! account and five points. Points are earned by answering questions (two points), by selecting a "best answer" to a question you've asked (three points) or by having your answer chosen as best (ten points). Since there are no credentials required to answer a question, you will need to use your own judgment when evaluating answers.