Evaluate Questions
By now you may have a list of potential research questions you might want to explore. This section is about evaluating which questions are worth pursuing as a research project or paper so that you can pick the one that's right for both you and your assignment.
Your Research Question Should Be
- Interesting to you. You're going to spend a lot of time researching and writing about this topic, so it should be something you enjoy learning about.
- Open-ended. A good research question is an exploratory one that can't be answered with a simple yes or no or a well-known fact.
- Appropriate to the assignment, whether that be the topic for the project, length of paper, or other details of the assignment.
- Something that helps you think about your topic in a new way. If your research question helps you learn more about a topic, that's a good thing!
Evaluating Sample Questions:
This question is definitely of interest to the person asking it, but it is not open-ended and does not really help us learn more about the TV show in a new way. It has a very definite answer that can easily be found by looking up viewing statistics. Not a very good research question.
Again, this question is probably of interest to the person asking it. It is open-ended (there is no yes/no answer), and it may help you think of reality TV dating shows in a new way. However, it is a BIG question that would require more time and energy than you would put into a short research project or paper assignment, so it is not really an appropriate final research question. But it's a step in the right direction!
Example 3: Does watching reality TV dating shows have an impact on teenagers' beliefs about romantic relationships?
This question is of interest to the person asking it, is open-ended, and is appropriate in scope for a short research project or paper. Most importantly it helps the researcher think about reality TV dating shows in a new way, specifically, how it impacts teenagers' romantic relationships. This would be a good research question to pursue.
Time to Practice
Review the questions you brainstormed in the previous section. Using the criteria introduced in this section, determine which of your questions would make a good initial research question for your paper or project. Pick one or two of your best research questions for your topic.