Questions and topics - Finding a research question - Writing your paper

Student's guide to writing college papers, Fourth edition - Kate L. Turabian 2010

Questions and topics
Finding a research question
Writing your paper

2.1 Questions and Topics

2.2 How to Choose a Topic

2.2.1 How to Work with an Assigned Topic

2.2.2 How to Find a Topic Based on Your Personal Interests

2.2.3 Make Your Topic Manageable

2.3 Question Your Topic

2.3.1 Ask Your Own Questions

2.3.2 Borrow Questions

2.4 How to Find a Topic and Question in a Source

2.4.1 Look for Creative Disagreements

2.4.2 Build on Agreement

2.4.3 Look for Surprises

2.5 Evaluate Your Questions

A research project is a lot more than collecting data. You start it before you log on to the Internet or head for the library, and you continue it long after you have all the data you think you need. In that process, you complete many tasks, but they all aim at just five general goals:

✵ Find a question worth answering about a topic you care about.

✵ Find an answer that you can support with good reasons.

✵ Find reliable evidence to back up your reasons.

✵ Write a first draft that makes a good case for your answer, explains its significance, and anticipates your readers' questions.

✵ Revise that draft until readers will think you have been clear, complete, and convincing.

(You might even post those goals over your desk.)

A research project would be easy if you could march straight through those steps. But as we've said, research is looping, messy, and unpredictable. You can manage it with a plan, as long as you are prepared to depart from it. The first step in that plan is one you cannot put off: to find a good research question.

CAUTION

Start with a Question, Not Your Favorite Answer

Students sometimes think that a short cut to a research paper is to argue for something they already believe so strongly that nothing could change their mind. Big mistake. Not only will you lose the benefits of the research experience, but you'll come to your paper with the wrong frame of mind: to say whatever's necessary to support your position rather than to find out what will help you discover the truth. Even when they are confident that they know what the answer will be, true researchers follow where the facts lead them rather than force the facts to go their way. Plan to answer a question, not defend an opinion.

2.1 Questions and topics

Most students start a research project without a good question, often without even a topic. That puts them a couple of steps behind most professionals, who start with their research question in mind.

Often researchers start with a question that others in their field already think is worth answering: Did Native Americans cause the extinction of North American woolly mammoths? Because it's a familiar question, they also know why their colleagues think it is important. So what? Well, if we knew why the woolly mammoths disappeared, maybe we could answer a bigger question that puzzles many historical anthropologists: Did early Native Americans live in harmony with nature, as some believe, or did they hunt its largest creatures to extinction? (And if we knew that, then we might also understand . . .)

Other times researchers start with a question that just pops into their mind with no hint of where it will lead, sometimes about matters so seemingly trivial that only the researcher thinks they're worth answering: Why does a coffee spill dry up in the form of a ring? Such a question might lead nowhere, but you can't know that until you see its answer. In fact, the scientist puzzled by coffee rings discovered things about fluids that others in his field thought important—and that paint manufacturers used to improve their products. So who knows where you might go with a silly question like How many cats slept in the Alamo the night before the battle? You can't know until you answer it.

QUICK TIP

A researcher's most valuable asset is the ability to be puzzled by seemingly obvious things, like the shape of coffee rings or that the hair on your head keeps growing while body hair doesn't. Cultivate the ability to question the commonplace and you'll never lack for research projects. Questioning the obvious is also the first step in critical thinking, which is a skill much prized in the workplace. But you won't do it well then if you don't start practicing it now.

If your assignment allows it, you too can start with a question that's been eating at you, especially if you can discover something of use to someone you know. One source of questions might be a problem that you or a family member has faced. If your neighborhood is near a chemical plant, research the health risks. If you know someone afflicted with a disease, research any new or experimental treatments. Another source might be a cause to which you are devoted. If you volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, research how well those houses suit their owners ten years after they are completed. A third source might be some-thing you love to do. If you are addicted to fashion and hope to be a designer, research the economic challenges for a startup design company.

If you begin with only a topic, you should still consult your interests. Is there some mental itch you'd like to scratch? I've collected Mardi Gras masks for years, but I have no idea where they came from. You might not know exactly what will puzzle you about the origins of the masks, but your project gives you a chance to find out, to scratch that itch. Even if you must begin with a topic so unfamiliar that you can't imagine what could be puzzling about it, look hard for something that sparks your interest. The more you care to have an answer to your research question, the easier it will be to show why your readers should care too, and the longer you can work on finding it before you weary of the search.

How to Use the Rest of This Chapter

If you are reading this chapter before you start your project, to learn how research questions work, read on from here to the end. But if you are using it to develop a question for a project, go to the section designed for your stage in the process:

1. If you already have a promising research question, skip to 2.5 to learn how to test it.

2. If you are working from a text, skip to 2.4 to learn how to find a research question in your response to it.

3. If you have a general topic, skip to 2.3 to learn how to find a question in it.

4. If you are starting from scratch, move on to the next section.

Watch for the blue examples. You will find lots of questions in this chapter. Some are questions you should ask to help yourself find a good research question: those are in regular type. Some are examples of the kind of research questions you might use in your paper: those are in blue. Your goal is to find a question of the sort you find in the blue examples.