How do I make a question about something I don't understand in a book I am reading?

Question

I am reading about exciton transfer between molecules in this book:

Volkhard May, Oliver Kühn - Charge and Energy Transfer Dynamics in Molecular Systems, 2nd Edition

I am confused about section 8.2, "The Exciton Hamiltonian". I've been thinking about posting a question here, and I've been thinking really hard about what I can do to make the post as general as possible, so that it isn't specific to this book but rather a question about the theory used to describe intermolecular exciton transfer. But I don't know how to do it.

Would it be ok to ask the question, referring to the specific paragraphs in the book that I am having trouble with, so that someone else, more qualified than me, could edit the question into something more general?

Answer 1

I think you should just ask the question. Try to focus on the physics which is confusing you, but don't worry too much about generalizing.

Also, please do your best to keep the question self-contained. Better to type out a few equations than to ask your audience to read several pages off-site. For one thing, the process of choosing what to include in the question can help you figure out exactly what's confusing.

Answer 2

User1504's answer is great. I would only add that you can (and should) continue to credit the author and book, such as:

In "Charge and Energy Transfer Dynamics in Molecular Systems", 2nd Edition, authors Volkhard May and Oliver Kühn write that .... They state that....

and so on.

Answer 3

I do that a lot and I find that putting "Author Book title Eq. number" in the title together with modern search engines is a great way of keeping track of all the posts I had on specific questions. Many people read the same book on a subject and will recognize the implied question by the title + Eq. number. It even occurred once that the author of the book himself replied to a post.