English 110

It’s rare that you’ll start the research process knowing absolutely nothing about the research topic. It’s important to give yourself credit for what you already know. Filling in the table below will help. This exercise gives you a simple way to gauge your starting point, and may help you identify specific gaps in your knowledge of your topic that you will need to fill as you proceed with your research.

In the first column, list things you already know about your topic for the research assignment for this class.

(If you’re currently debating between multiple topics, just choose one for this exercise. Don’t worry: you’re not going to be stuck with this topic if you decide to change your mind later. It happens all the time, especially early in the research process!)

In the second column, briefly explain how you know this (heard it from the professor, read it in assigned readings, saw it on social media, etc.).

In the last column, rate your confidence in that knowledge. Are you sure of this bit of knowledge, or did you just hear it somewhere and assume it was right? It’s okay if you’re not sure of something. That’s what research is for: to improve your knowledge about your topic.

When you’ve looked at everything you think you know about the topic and why, step back and look at the chart as a whole.

Exercise:

How much do you know about the topic, and how confident are you about what you know? You may be surprised at how little or how much you already know, but the point is to become aware of your own background on the topic. This self-awareness is key to becoming more information literate: not just being able to understand information you encounter, but also knowing how to contextualize it and, crucially, how to use it to accomplish your purposes.

Once you’ve clearly stated what you do know about your topic, it should be easier to state what you don’t know. Why would you want to think about this? Because research is about answering a question. Your research question defines the limits of what you are searching for. (Nobody is expected to know everything about a topic.)

To see what we mean, start filling out the table below. For now, just fill out the first two columns, and start thinking about the gaps in your knowledge and how they might inform your research questions.

Exercise: KWHL Table (Know, Want, How, Learned)

Adapted from The Information Literacy User’s Guide: An Open, Online Textbook by Deborah Bernnard, Greg Bobish, Jenna Hecker, Irina Holden, Allison Hosier, Trudi Jacobson, Tor Loney, and Daryl Bullis, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Most of us ask questions and seek answers every day. Are research questions any different from most of the regular questions we ask? Yes.

Generally, our everyday questions have quick answers. For example, I bet you could easily find the answers to these questions -- and I bet you have answered questions just like them many times:

• What time does the grocery store open?
• What other movies has that actor been in?

Even more seemingly serious questions, if they can be answered definitively using a single source, don't make great research questions. For example, it might take a little more digging to figure out how many languages are spoken in Jackson Heights, Queens, but that doesn't make it a great research question. A good research question asks how or why. (And a good research question takes a lot more effort to answer, but we'll get to that in the next sections!) In this case, a stronger research question might ask, How have the languages spoken in Jackson Heights, Queens, changed over time, and what factors drove that change?

Here are some more examples of regular questions and research questions:

Regular Question: What time is my movie showing on Friday?
Research Question: How do “sleeper” films end up having outstanding attendance figures?

Regular Question: What film won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2017?
Research Question: How did the mistaken announcement of La La Land as winner of Best Picture in 2017 become a focal point for conversations about whiteness and heteronormativity in the Oscars? 

Regular Question: What can I do about my insomnia?
Research Question: How do flights more than 16 hours long affect the reflexes of commercial jet pilots?

Regular Question: How many children in the U.S. have allergies?
Research Question: How does poverty affect a child’s chances of developing asthma?

Can you come up with research questions based on regular questions? (You can also complete this exercise in the Library Workbook for English 110.)

Adapted from Choosing & Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research by Teaching & Learning, Ohio State University Libraries, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Developing a specific research question can be challenging. The less you know about a topic, the broader your initial question is likely to be. As you learn more, you will have other, more specific questions to choose from. That’s why we talk about developing a research question. It’s an ongoing process, and you can expect your question to change more than once.

The steps for developing a research question, listed below, can help you organize your thoughts.

Step 1: Consider a topic (one you picked, or was assigned to you).

Step 2: Write a narrower/smaller topic that is related to the first.

Step 3: List some potential questions that could logically be asked in relation to the narrow topic. The best research questions ask “how” or “why” because answering those questions requires more thoughtful analysis.

Step 4: Pick the question that you are most interested in.

Step 5: Revise that question you’re interested in so that it is more focused. Don’t feel like you have to come up with a question you can answer right now, or even the final research question you’ll end up writing about. This kind of brainstorming is part of getting the research process started.

Here’s an example:

Now you try!

(You can complete this exercise in the Library Workbook for English 110.)

When it comes down to it, only three skills are involved in developing a research question:

• Imagining narrower topics about a larger one
• Thinking of questions that stem from a narrow topic
• Focusing questions to eliminate their vagueness

Every time you use these skills, it’s important to evaluate what you have produced—that’s just part of the process of turning rough drafts into more finished products. Next, let’s look at how to turn your focused question into key terms, advancing the research process.

Adapted from Choosing & Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research by Teaching & Learning, Ohio State University Libraries, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.