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Subject Guide: English: Developing a Research Question

Resources and tools for English Students.

Why make it a question?

Once you've successfully narrowed your research topic so that it fits the scope of your research assignment, it's important to turn your topic into a question. This helps make your research much more targeted, as it means you are looking for answers to a question you are asking, rather than any random sources that are related to your topic.

Unless your professor requires you to use a research question with a yes or no answer, the best words to turn your topic into a question are "how" and "why".

For example, if your narrow research topic is The ethics of creating genetically modified organisms, you can turn this into a question like the following: How ethical is it to produce genetically modified organisms?

Developing a Thesis Statement

How does your research question connect to your thesis statement for your project? Once you have decided on your research question, you research for sources to answer that question. After you have found sources that answer your question, your thesis is your own answer to your research question, supported by the sources you've found in your research.  

A well-written thesis statement has two parts:

1.The answer to your research question (your position).
2.Your reasons (supported by the sources you've found).

 

Developing Search Terms

Before you can search for your new research question, you should pick out search terms (also called keywords) that you can use to search for your topic in our library databases. Search terms are words or short phrases that describe your topic--you can think of them as the most important words in your research question. Below is a sample research question.

"How does the availability of childcare affect student parents' success in college?"

Some potential search terms might be: "childcare, "student parents," "success," and "college.

However, it's also important to have backup search terms if you don't have any luck with your first attempt. Sometimes sources aren't using the words you typed in and you need to think of alternatives or synonyms. Here are some examples of back-ups for each of the above example search terms.

  • Childcare >> Daycare
  • Student parents >> Student caregivers
  • Success >> Graduation rates, GPA
  • College >> Community college, higher education