Information Literacy Tutorial | 2c TOPICS: Asking a Question

2. Topics

c. Asking a Question

Research requires a question for which no ready answer is available. What do you want to know about a topic? Asking a topic as a question (or series of related questions) has several advantages:

1. Questions require answers. A topic is hard to cover completely because it typically encompasses too many related issues; but a question has an answer, even if it is ambiguous or controversial. How could you change the topic of drugs and crime into the form of a question?

Could liberalization of drug laws reduce crime in the U.S.?

Is there a direct link between violent criminal behavior and drugs?

2. Questions give you a way of evaluating the evidence. A clearly stated question helps you decide which information will be useful. A question also makes it easier to know when you have enough information to stop your research and draft an answer.

3. A clear open-ended question calls for real research and thinking. Asking a question with no direct answer makes research and writing more meaningful to both you and your audience. Assuming that your research may solve significant problems or expand the knowledge base of a discipline involves you in more meaningful activity of community and scholarship.

Developing a question from a broad topic can be done in many ways. Two such effective ways are brainstorming and concept mapping.

Brainstorming is a free-association technique of spontaneously listing all words, concepts, ideas, questions, and knowledge about a topic. After making a lengthy list, sort the ideas into categories. This allows you to inventory your current awareness of a topic, decide what perspectives are most interesting and/or relevant, and decide in which direction to steer your research.

Concept mapping is a process, focused on a topic, in which group or individual produces a visual graphic that represents how the creator(s) thinks about that topic. It illustrates how knowledge is organized for the group or individual. Concept maps may be elaborate or simple and are designed to help you organize your thinking about a topic, recognize where you have gaps in your knowledge, and help to generate specific questions that may guide your research. Click the button below for more instructions.

By combining brainstorming techniques with concept mapping, you produce a topic definition statement. Basically, this statement serves as an outline of the area you will be researching. Click the worksheet image at right for more instructions.

WHO? WHAT? WHEN? WHERE? HOW?

Research questions are open-ended and require a variety of accumulated data to develop an answer. ("Could liberalization of drug laws reduce crime in the U.S.?")

Review or report questions are typically answered with what is generally known about a fairly narrow topic. ("What is the rationale for California's "3 strikes" sentencing policy?")

Reference questions are typically answered with single known facts or statistics. ("What percentage of drug-related crime in 1999 was committed by dealers, not users?")

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