Finding the Research Question

This exercise is very helpful in guiding students towards focusing their research. I take them through the following steps:

1. write down your tentative topic on the top of the paper.  Just a few words will do.  (e.g. Vietnam Veterans, anorexia, domestic violence, etc. )
2. State briefly why you chose this topic (I allow a few minutes for this)
3. List what you know about the topic already.  Use shorthand.  Your response should be in note form. (again, allow about 5 minutes)
4. Build a list of questions about the topic you would love to learn the answers to through research. These questions can be specific, but the better questions are more open.
5. Exchange papers with a partner.  Try to add questions that your partner hasn’t thought of.  Don’t worry about whether or not your partner might already know the answers. The object here is to expand his or her thinking about the topic. When your partner returns your paper to you, review the questions he or she has added. [You may have to circulate and help students to generate more questions, giving a few examples. If they are really having trouble, you might model with your paper first, asking them to help you generate more questions about your topic. In fact, you could model the whole process on the board.]
6. Looking at all of the questions, check the most interesting questions on your list.
7. Start a fresh sheet of paper with the question you think might be the most interesting at the top.  This may be a combination of a few of the questions on your list, but try not to make it too broad.  This could be a possible focus for your paper.
8. Try to build a new list of more specific questions under that main one.
9. Share this list with your partner as you did at step 5. See if your partner can add more questions.
10. Talk about your focus with your partner.  You might use these more specific questions in interviews.

When students have completed this part of the exercise, I conclude by going around the circle and reading their focused research questions which they generated at step 7. This gives me the opportunity to help students to refine the questions We make suggestions and try to refine the question into one which can be researched and suggest resources for interviews etc. I have students submit these questions and have sometimes made a class list. This can help people suggest other resources. It also holds students accountable, because I require a conference with me before they can change the research topic.