Undergraduate Research Center: The Research Process

Writing an effective research question (or RQ) involves answering a few questions about your research topic.  As you begin writing your RQ and searching for materials, keep these questions in mind.

1) What’s Your Lens or Scope on the Topic?

Your RQ should include key terms and themes that are most relevant to how you want to explore the topic. They can also be helpful to limit the scope of the topic from being too all-encompassing or too narrow. In a research paper, you want to explore part of a larger issue, not the whole topic.

2) What Keywords Does the Research Use?

If you are struggling with keywords, try to find one article that approaches the topic. Google Scholar is a great tool for finding related articles. By looking at research that has already been done, you will learn terms and phrases that you can use in your search and RQ. What terms do the authors use different from the ones you started with?

3) Who Does Your Topic Impact Most?

Your RQ can focus on certain populations as a way of narrowing your topic. This can be an age group, an ethnic or economic population, or another demographic. RQs can also look at geographic areas like cities vs. rural areas, or states and countries. What population do you want to examine in terms of the impact or influence of your topic?

4) How Does Your RQ Measure Change?

Deciding what measurements or what outcomes to focus on can be challenging. But these outcomes are the evidence of impact that are the heart of good research. What outcomes or changes do you want to look at with your topic?

5) Does your RQ Invite Discussion?

When you read your RQ, it shouldn’t be a “yes or no” question. Neither should the answer be a list of facts. An effective RQ invites exploration and discussion through research. Are you leaving your RQ open-ended enough that you can explore possible answers through the research you find?

Below is an ineffective RQ, and one example of how it might be rewritten to invite a more thorough research investigation.

Ineffective RQ: 

Should Old People be Allowed to Drive?

Effective RQ: 

How would mandatory driving tests for those over age 60 affect the number of traffic accidents in rural California?

Following the numbered steps above, you can see how this newly written RQ changed from the original, ineffective RQ.

How5 would mandatory driving tests2 for those over age 603 affect the number of traffic accidents4 in rural California3?

Explanation: 

5: Changed from the subjective, yes-or-no phrasing of "should" to "how," which invites discussion based on research.

2: Changed to use descriptive language that is more likely to be used in formal research.

3: This change identifies a specific age group, people over 60, to help narrow the scope of the research.

4: Focusing on the number of traffic accidents gives a specific, measurable lens through which to view the impact of the inquiry.  

3: This geographic limiter also narrows the scope, and can easily be swapped for other states, specific counties, or different countries.

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Additional Resources on Writing RQs

Because disciplinary fields can approach research methods differently, not all RQs are authored in the same way.  Below are a few suggested resources to help students in different fields approach the creation of effective RQs for their research.