Chapter 3: Developing a Research Question

What You Will Make

Produce a research question with a scope note: case, period, evidence, and what the essay will not establish. A narrower question is useful only if answering it still requires thought.

Find a Difficulty in the Material

Begin with a tension, an unresolved explanation, or a mismatch between a claim and its support. Avoid questions that merely request a list of facts. Also avoid asking the evidence to reveal motives, causes, or populations it does not contain.

Fictional teaching case: This lesson uses the invented campus-transit records in Chapter 1. Record labels and numbers are practice material, not real research to cite or submit.

Narrow the Question

Too broad: “Does public transport improve education?” The dossier does not measure education and cannot answer a general causal question.

Too descriptive: “How many boardings were recorded?” Record A answers it directly; there is little argument to develop.

Workable: “What do the boarding, timetable, and survey records establish about evening access after this service change?” This invites comparison between usage and the ability to travel after class. It also requires explaining why the measures cannot be substituted for one another.

The word “establish” matters. You are evaluating the evidence’s reach, not promising to resolve every transport need on campus. A real research project would need real sources suited to the defined question.

Try It Yourself

Write two questions for your assigned material. Beside each, list the evidence that could answer it and one important fact you cannot currently determine. Reject a question that depends entirely on unavailable evidence, or adjust its scope with your instructor where appropriate.

Example adjustment: Replace “Did the new route cause better access?” with a question about what the available before/after records indicate. Record the missing comparison evidence as a limitation rather than pretending it is unnecessary.

Check Your Work

• Is there a real problem to examine, rather than a fact to retrieve?
• Does the question identify the relevant case and evidence?
• Could a reasonable alternative answer change how you read the sources?
• Can you answer it within the assignment’s length and methods?

Keep the question provisional while researching, and record why any major change was needed.

Source Guidance

A useful analytical question identifies a difficulty that available evidence can help investigate. (Harvard College Writing Center)