If you’re writing a research paper, a research question will help get you started. A research question is a detailed question that you will answer with your research and your essay. Having a research question is beneficial because it helps you focus your research and your paper. That kind of focus means you will be able to develop a clear thesis once you’ve done your research.
Narrowing Down Your Topic
1Pick a general area of research that interests you. You’re likely writing your paper for a particular class. If you’re taking something like Introduction to Biology, try narrowing down the field a bit to find out what interests you.
- What kind of biology will you write about? Is it connected to an experiment you will conduct? What are the physical limitations of your experiment? All of these answers will help you narrow your question.
- Maybe you want to write specifically on botany, and even narrower, on grafting in plants. Or say you’re in a humanities field, such as history. If you’re class is An Overview of American History, maybe you want to narrow it specifically to the Civil War, and then narrow it down even more to Lincoln’s influence on the Civil War.
2Do some preliminary research. At this point, it’s fine to use internet search engines like Google and Wikipedia. You’re just trying to get a general idea of the topic. Read general articles that discuss the topic you are thinking about discussing in your paper, and jot down things that catch your attention.
3Brainstorm ideas. What fascinates you about your given topic? Why did you choose it in the first place? Draw a diagram on a paper with the main topic in the center. Branch ideas off the center. Continue branching until you come up with a branch that seems interesting to you; that will be what you focus your question on.
- For example, if you start with the Civil War as your main topic, one branch could be Lincoln’s influence, which could lead to another branch about Lincoln’s childhood. If it interests you, your research could explore how Lincoln’s childhood affected his decision making during the Civil War.
4Avoid questions that have been overdone. You want your question to be as original as possible, especially if you are in a postgraduate program. As an undergraduate, your professor is mainly looking to see that you can research and think through an argument, but by the time you’re a postgraduate, your professor will be looking to see if you can make an original argument.
- If you run internet searches on the topic you are thinking about discussing, and you find that the research topic you have in mind has been answered in many different books and documents, you may want to come up with a different topic.
Choosing a Specific Question
1Stay away from questions that are too broad. Maybe you have a general question, such as “How can grafting be used on plants?” or “How did Lincoln influence the Civil War?” However, these are very broad. If you research these questions, you will end up with too much to read and a paper that isn’t focused. You have to narrow your topic down.
2Make your question more specific. Look at each part of your question, and consider how you can make it more specific.
- For instance, with the “How can grafting be used on plants” question, ask yourself what kind of grafting you want to focus on. To what end? What kind of plants? If you answer those questions and others like it, you may end up with something more specific, for example “How can whip grafting be used to produce consistent Honeycrisp apple trees?”
- If you have a humanities question, ask yourself similar questions. What issue in the Civil War do you want to focus on when considering Lincoln’s influence? Do you want to look at the overall outcome or how Lincoln influenced specific battles? What part of Lincoln’s influence do you want to look at? By answering those questions, you can end up with a more specific question: “How did Lincoln’s personal beliefs on slavery affect the Emancipation Proclamation?”
3Make sure your question isn’t one that can be easily answered through a search engine. You want something interesting that requires research, thinking, and the development of an argument.
- For instance, something like “What is chlorophyll?” is can be answered with a simple search through the dictionary. Your topic should force you to actually do research.
4Avoid making your research question too ambitious. Despite wanting your question to be unique and interesting, don’t bite off more than you can chew. That is, don’t make your question too ambitious. You want to be able to answer it in the confines of a paper. In the same vein, you don’t want a question that is unanswerable. Through your research, make sure you will be able to draw some sort of conclusion through your arguments.
Researching Your Chosen Question
1Think about the kinds of articles, books, and primary sources you’ll need to read to cover your topic. You’ll want a few general books to cover your topic, but you’ll also want to find research that is as close to your topic as possible.
- Don’t worry if you end up finding a paper with a similar topic. Use it to help develop your own argument in contrast to the other paper.
2Gather a list of places you want to look for source documents. Use your university’s library for research. You’ll be able to find books, journal articles, and primary sources like journals and letters, usually. However, you can also search online.
- The Library of Congress has a great deal of its archives online, and you can find high-quality information there, as well as other educational archives; you can find photographs, journal articles, personal journals and correspondence, and other types of primary sources.
3Look at your university’s databases. Most universities will have some databases like EBSCOhost and JSTOR. EBSCOhost is a collection of databases. You will mainly find journal articles and newspaper articles, though you may be able to access a few books.
- What you have access to will depend on what your university pays for. However, you should at least have access to a database in your field of study.
- Narrow your search to only those databases that will return relevant results. JSTOR has older articles, but it is still useful in researching a topic.
4If possible, don’t forget to use primary resources. For example, for the Lincoln topic, looking at his personal correspondence, notes, and journals would be very helpful in establishing an argument about his personal belief system.
- Remember, the key to a great research question is to make it narrow enough to write a specific paper. Too broad, and your paper will be all over the place. Keep it focused, so your research and essay will be focused in turn.