8.2 Finding a Research Question

We live in an age of immediate answers. Although we have not achieved parity in access to technology worldwide, information has never been easier to uncover. This is, of course, a double-edged sword: the proliferation of ideas due to the technological revolution enables new kinds of learning but also has fundamentally changed the way we think and interact.

The intent can kill the wonder for many because they have such quick access to answers. The experience of sustained curiosity is now very rare in his life. All kinds of questions are easily answered by googling “Who was that guy in Back to the Future Part II?” or “Do spiders hibernate?” or by taking a brief crawl through Wikipedia: “How has globalization impacted Bhutan’s economy?” “What life experiences influenced Frida Kahlo’s painting?” But the answers to these questions, though easily discovered, paint a very one-dimensional portrait of human knowledge.

For scientists and writers alike, the spirit of curiosity motivates at once individual learning and also the growth and progress of our collective knowledge. Your innate ability to be curious puts you in the league of the most brilliant and prolific scholars—people who were driven by questions, seeking to interrogate the world around them.

Hopefully, we can embrace inquisitive fascination by rejecting easy answers and using writing as a means of discovery.

Inquiry-Based Research

You may have already written research papers by this point in your academic career. If your experience has been like mine, writing these papers went one of two ways:

1. The teacher assigns a specific topic for you to research, and sometimes even a specific thesis for you to prove.
2. The teacher provides more freedom, allowing students to choose a topic at their discretion or from a set of options.

In both situations, my teacher expected me to figure out what I wanted to argue, and then find research to back me up. I was expected to have a fully formed stance on an issue, and then use my sources to explain and support that stance. Not until graduate school did I encounter inquiry-based research, which inverts this sequence.

Put simply, inquiry-based research refers to research and research writing that is motivated by curiosity rather than a teacher’s requirement.

Consider the difference this can make: if research is about learning, then an inquiry-based perspective is essential. If you only seek out the ideas that agree with you, you will never learn.

Even if the investigation yields the same answers, their differences are crucial. When we only look for answers that agree with our preexisting ideas, we are more likely to ignore other important ideas, voices, and possibilities. Most importantly, confirmation bias inhibits genuine learning, which relies on challenging, expanding, and complicating our current knowledge and worldviews.

Consequently, inquiry-based research is time-consuming and intensive: instead of only dealing with evidence that supports a certain answer or perspective, it requires the reasoner to encounter a great diversity of evidence and answers, which can be difficult to sift through.

This distinction has important implications for the kind of research and research writing for which this book advocates.

• You don’t have to—shouldn’t have a thesis set in stone before starting your thesis, but you must be tremendously flexible: be prepared to pivot, qualify, nuance, or entirely change your answer as you proceed.
• To pursue your research question, you will need to encounter a lot of sources. Not all of the sources you encounter will make it into your paper, which is a new practice for some students. This is a time-consuming process, but it leads to more significant learning, more complex thinking, and more interesting and effective rhetoric.

From Topic to Research Question

The goal of college-level research assignments is never going to be to simply “go find sources” on your topic. Instead, think of sources as helping you to answer a research question or a series of research questions about your topic. These should not be simple questions with simple answers, but rather complex questions about which there is no easy or obvious answer.

Toni Morrison states, “I write out of ignorance. I write about the things I don’t have any resolutions for, and when I’m finished, I think I know a little bit more about it. I don’t write out of what I know. It’s what I don’t know that stimulates me.” Think of a research paper as an opportunity to deepen (or create!) knowledge about a topic that matters to you. Just as Toni Morrison states that she is stimulated by what she doesn’t yet know, a research paper assignment can be interesting and meaningful if it allows you to explore what you don’t know.

A compelling research question may involve controversy may have a variety of answers, or may not have any single, clear answer. All of that is okay and even desirable. If the answer is an easy and obvious one, then there is little need for argument or research. Make sure that your research question is clear, specific, researchable, and limited (but not too limited). Most of all, make sure that you are curious about your research question. If it does not matter to you, researching it will feel tedious.

The video below includes a deeper explanation of what a good research question is as well as examples of strong research questions:

“Creating a Good Research Question” by CII GSU

Developing a Research Question

Finding a conversation that you’re excited about and genuinely interested in is the first and most important step. As you develop a topic, keep in mind that pursuing your curiosities and passions will make your research process less arduous, more relevant, and more pleasant. Such an approach will also naturally improve the quality of your writing: the interest you have in a topic will come across in the construction of your sentences and your willingness to pursue multiple lines of thought about a topic. An author’s boredom results in a boring paper, and an author’s enthusiasm translates to enthusiastic writing.

Depending on the parameters your teacher has set, your research topic might need to (1) present a specific viewpoint, (2) focus on a specific topic, or (3) focus on a certain theme or set of ideas. It’s also possible that your teacher will allow complete autonomy for one or all of your research assignments. Be sure you review any materials your instructor provides and ask clarifying questions to make sure your topic fits the guidelines of their assignment.

To generate ideas, identify areas of interest, then develop questions of all sizes and types. Eventually, you will zero in on a question or combination of questions as your path of inquiry.

What makes for a good research question or path of inquiry? Of course, the answer to this question will depend on your rhetorical situation. However, there are some common characteristics of a good research question in any situation:

• It is answerable but not easily answerable. Engaging and fruitful research questions require complex, informed answers. However, they shouldn’t be so subjective, intricate, or expansive that they simply cannot be answered in the scope of your rhetorical situation.
• It is specific. By establishing parameters on your scope, you can be sure your research is directed and relevant.
• It matters to your audience. Research questions and the rhetoric they inform are valuable only because they have stakes: even if it’s a small demographic, the answers to your research question should impact someone.
• It allows you to say something unique. As discussed earlier in this chapter, inquiry-based research should encourage you to articulate a unique standpoint by synthesizing many different voices, interpreted from your perspective, with your life experiences and ideas. What you say doesn’t have to be groundbreaking, but it shouldn’t just reiterate ideas, arguments, histories, or perspectives.

It is difficult to find a question that hits all these marks on your first try. As you proceed through research, prewriting, drafting, and revising, you should refine and adjust your question(s). Just like any other part of writing, developing a path of inquiry is iterative: you’ve got to take a lot of chances and work your way toward different results.

Working Questions

To find the best version of your research question, you should develop “working questions”—questions of all sizes and types that are pertinent to your subject. As you can see below, you can start with a handful of simple working questions that will eventually lead to a viable research question.

As you hone your path of inquiry, you may need to zoom in or out in terms of scope: depending on your rhetorical situation, you will need different degrees of focus. Just like narration, research writing benefits from a careful consideration of scope. Often, a narrower scope is easier to work with than a broader scope—you will be able to write more and write better if your question asks for more complex thinking.

It’s important to be flexible throughout your research project. Be prepared to pivot topics, adjust your research question, change your opinions, and confront unanticipated challenges.

As you build a working knowledge of your topic, you might complicate or narrow your working questions. Gradually, try to articulate a research question (or a combination of questions). Remember to be flexible as you research though: you might need to pivot, adjust, refocus, or replace your research question as you learn more.

Although our culture would tell us that we have to know everything and that we should even begin a research project by knowing the answer to our question, there is obvious value in using research as a tool to engage our curiosity and sense of wonder as human beings—perhaps even to improve our lives or the lives of others. If all researchers started the process with preconceived answers, no new findings would ever come to be. To truly learn about a topic or issue, especially when it involves important decision-making, we need to learn to embrace uncertainty and feel comfortable knowing we might not always have an answer when we begin a research project.