Framing Your Research Questions

Choosing a topic is the first step in preparing a research plan. Then you'll want to think about how you want to approach the topic you've chosen. In some cases, you're doing research in order to develop an argument, but sometimes, you just want to provide your reader with information. Think about your writing situation. If you're writing for a class, this would be a good time to take another look at your assignment sheet to remind yourself of the kind of paper your instructor has requested. If you're writing as part of your job, think about what you want your finished piece to accomplish.

Once you have your purpose clearly in mind, you can start framing your research questions. Try developing several questions related to your topic, and then choose one that best fits the goals of your final paper. For example, if you were writing on multiracial issues, you might develop questions like this:

• Should the U.S. Census Bureau add a multiracial category to the racial identity part of its survey?

• Why do some African-Americans reject Tiger Woods's self-identification as multiracial rather than African-American? Why do some people of mixed racial background prefer a multiracial category to the current categories?

• How will adding a multiracial category to college application forms affect the enrollment of people of color in American colleges and universities?

Or, if you were writing about electronic privacy, you might come up with these questions:

• What privacy risks do the Internet, computerization, and other recent technological developments create?

• What is the U.S. government doing to protect our electronic privacy?

• Are U.S. government approaches to electronic privacy effective and fair?

• How can people protect themselves from electronic snooping?

• Should people be worried about electronic privacy?

Once you've chosen a general research question, it is a good idea to think about the more specific issues you'll have to examine in order to answer your general question. For example, to explore whether the U.S. Census Bureau should add a multiracial category to its survey, you might look into the following specific issues:

• Does anyone have a guess about how many Americans consider themselves multiracial?

• How will multiracial data affect the process of creating legislative districts?

• How will multiracial data affect the current public discussion about racism in the U.S.?

• How do multiracial people feel about the issue?

• Why haven't we included this category in the past?

Taking time to develop your questions will help you be more efficient in your research since it will help you decide which of the many available sources will be worth your time and energy. It can also help you determine fairly specific key words to use in your library, database, and internet searches, so you won't have to sort through thousands of possible articles, books, and web sites.

See Sample Student Work:

• Formulating Research Questions

Selecting a Topic

Surveying the Topic

E-mail your comments and suggestions to the YSU Grant Team (cardcat@bgnet.bgsu.edu)