The reason I would suggest that an askers knowledge of terminology should be taken into consideration is that if by research effort we mean looking something up on the internet before asking a question, then a person's knowledge of terminology can actually have a impact on what he/she/they can find in a search.
If for example a question could be quickly answered by looking up atoms or molecules, but the asker did not use the words "atoms", or "molecules" in the post then I think it would be possible that the asker has heard of neither, and "atoms" and "molecules" wouldn't be likely to just pop into someone's mind as something to look up if someone had never heard of them. I could imagine person searching, "smallest pieces of stuff," if he/she hadn't heard of atoms or molecules but depending on what the asker asked it could be difficult to guess what he/she/they would think to use in a search and some keywords an asker might think to use in a search may not have the words, "atoms" or "molecules" come up in a search.
I think in general a lot of us probably think in terms of what keywords we would personally use in a search, as we take for granted what terms we know and it can sometimes be difficult to guess what words someone would use in a search if he/she/they didn't know the the terms we know. I think for this reason someone who isn't as familiar with physics terms could in some cases do a thorough search using words he/she knows or can think of and still give the impression of little research effort to someone who knows a lot of terminology in physics.
So if an asker doesn't use a given term in a question, should we take into consideration that the person might be unfamiliar with the word and so unable to use it in a search?
