Keeping your research question in mind, if you can answer TRUE to the statements below, your research question is probably workable.
Be careful about investigating questions that you think you already have the answer to.
Be curious
When the scope of your paper is too big, it's hard to dig through information and to write a paper wit any depth. The goal of most research papers in college is to seek a possible answer to a particular questions related to a topic. A research question, when not too broad or too narrow, helps guide and focus your paper.
The question should also be one in which you haven't decided on a pre-determined answer. You may find that looking for sources that provide a certain answer may be too limiting. The answer you are expecting might not be supported by evidence.
Brainstorm & do some pre-research
The research question isn't a question you make up at the top of your head. It's normal to start with a broad topic in mind. After doing some brainstorming about a topic, you will need to do some reading to find an angle to pursue, and, even then, your question may change as you find more information later.
Ask questions
From your pre-research, think about questions you might be able to ask regarding the topic. Most scholarly research examines fairly narrow topics and looks at relationships between concepts. One way to limit the scope of your topic is to ask who, what, where, when, why, and how questions.
Be flexible
It's okay to continue to tweak your question; the end result should be that you have answered the question you've laid out in the introduction, even if the introduction is the last paragraph you actually end up revising in your final paper.
Sleep habits
Who: college students
What: academic success
Most scholarly research examines fairly narrow topics and looks at relationships between concepts. For example, sleep habits is a broad topic, but looking at the relationship between sleep habits and academic success might be a more manageable topic.
My new question might be: "How do sleep habits affect the academic success of college students?"
But how did I get there? I did have to do some pre-research to find an angle, but the W/H method helped me brainstorm possibilities to investigate. After some quick searching, I saw that there were articles related to this topic. I had to try it out before committing to this investigation. I can possibly expand my review to include how to combat poor sleep patterns.
The overall research question serves as my guide.
This video starts with a welcoming message from the Powell Library, so it would be to introduce the title of the video, and start it at 0:05, and end it at 2:33 to skip the library branding and information at the end. This video discusses the purpose of mapping research ideas and demonstrates how to approach mind mapping. It prompts students to pause the video, so they can do their own mapping. The focus on asking who, what, where, when, how, and why questions and the variety of perspectives one might consider within their topic is good. After developing several research questions, the video advises students on the next steps they might take to select and explore a particular research question from their map. This video would be nice to assign to students prior to a class session that can focus on keyword building. This could also be a good class exercise for developing a research question.
Research Questions - About
Write Science Questions (Ecology Project International)
Humanistic Research Questions (T. Beauchamp, UCI)
Organization Research for Arts and Humanities (USC Libraries)
Writing Research Questions - at Research Rundowns (created by Dr. J. Patrick Biddix, University of Missouri – St. Louis)
Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: The Research Problem/Question - UCS Libraries
Anna Eisen (2:35)
Encourages students to develop background knowledge to create a research question. Research questions should have topic, question and significance. The narrator suggests using the following formulation: I’m studying _______________ to investigate ______________ in order to understand. Complex research questions take time to create.
There are three videos in the Starting Your Research tutorial series (Research Questions, Narrowing a Topic with Mind Mapping, and Types of Information) with a quiz that covers all three videos. The quiz can be emailed to the instructor or instruction librarian.
This video explains how to narrow a topic through mind mapping and demonstrates how to approach this process. The video explains that planning is the most important step in the research process. The video also points to mind mapping tools on Credo and Institute for Human & Machine Cognition. It might be a good video to watch in a class session with a mind mapping exercise or to have on a LibGuide that the instructor of the course can use in his or her own classroom or assign for homework. To skip over the branding, start the video at 0:02, and stop it at 2:54.
UCLA Libraries (2:52)
Steely Library NKU (1:39)
This brief video encourages students to create a focused research questions of interest that cannot be answered by a few facts, has good scope (not too narrow or too broad) and researchable. Students are instructed to start with some preliminary research to make sure that there will be sufficient information.
Laurier Library (6:25)
The following information is conveyed in this video. Topics are starting points for research questions. (The narrator points out that research questions do not always show up in a paper. For example, a research question may be expressed as a goal.) The 5Ws can be used to create a question. Good research questions require analysis (not answered by yes/no), are focused (meet assignment requirements), and are clear (no vague words). The narrator ends by connecting the research question to the thesis.
There are three videos in the Starting Your Research tutorial series (Research Questions, Narrowing a Topic with Mind Mapping, and Types of Information) with a quiz that covers all three videos. The quiz can be emailed to the instructor or instruction librarian.
This video discusses strategies for how to come up with a good research question, beginning with coming up with a topic by reading and taking notes from textbooks, reference books, Credo, Wikipedia, websites, etc. The video explains that after coming up with a topic, students should formulate a research question; a research question describes the question that will be answered in a paper. Questions should be open-ended. The video explains that an open-ended question is answered by factual information that can be interpreted differently. This might be a good video to have students watch prior to a session or during a session that includes an activity on coming up with research questions. This video has branding at the end and beginning; begin the video at 0:02, and end it at 3:05.
North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries, 3:10
Students are led through the process of picking a research topic by meeting Jenny and experiencing her flawed model of the research process. Students hear about the iterative nature of research as picking a topic is intertwined with finding and reading sources. This videos stresses the importance of exploratory research to inform the shape of a research question.
Oklahoma State University (3:42)
This videos stresses that research questions should not be simplistic, yet require focus. The goal of inquiry is not to reach an absolute final answer. Research takes times and it an iterative process that uses a variety of sources and perspectives.
New Literacies Alliance (2:57)
Takes a topic and uses the 5Ws to create a focused research question. Ask students to consider if the question works for the assignment at hand. Also illustrates how research questions can be narrowed or expanded with the 5Ws. The narrator mentions the challenges of questions that are too broad or too narrow.