As you start to develop an idea for a research topic or question, you will need to do some preliminary research to refine your idea. Before you begin your research, though, it can be helpful to think about what you already know about your topic and what you want to know.

Sample Knowledge Check

The following is an example of a knowledge check, or a worksheet to brainstorm what you know and want to know about your topic.

Topic, Interest, or Idea: Before you begin the activity, you will want to have a general idea of an initial topic or interest you might want to research. This can be pretty broad at this stage. In this example, the topic listed is "data mining and privacy."

Know: After you come up with an initial idea to work with, you want to think about what you already know about this topic. It can be helpful to think of things like events, people, places or history related to your topic. For this example, we wrote down things like Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, Mark Zuckerberg, and targeted Facebook ads.

Want to Know: Next, you'll want to make note of what you want to learn about this topic. What questions do you have about it? For this example, we listed questions like "How is my data being gathered?"

Time to Practice

Now it's your turn! Reflect on your initial idea, question, or topic and think about what you know and what you want to know about it. Use the handout linked to below to help guide your process. You can fill it out digitally, or print out a copy and fill it out by hand.

Research Question Development - What do I Know or Want to Know.docx