ENGL C1000 - Academic Reading and Writing - Gover

6 Parts of the Research Question

Consider at least 3 of these questions using your topic when creating a research question:

1. WHO: Who is involved? Whom does it affect?
2. WHAT: What are the facts? What is the problem or issue? What is similar to this? What other concepts are related?+
3. WHEN: Did this happen during a certain time? What is the most updated information about this available?
4. WHERE: Where did this begin? Where does it fall morally (good/bad/fair)? Where is there more information?
5. WHY: Why did it happen? What were the causes that led to this? Is there previous evidence for this?
6. HOW: How did it happen? How serious is the problem? How can it be solved?

Adapted from LMU Libguide: Need a Topic

Practice Topic Development

Let's practice using our topic example: alcohol abuse and student success. If we answer at least 3 of our helpful questions above:

1. WHO: College age students, young adults, people between the ages of 18-25
2. WHAT: Alcohol use statistics in colleges, alcohol related deaths for students, dropout rates and stories, drunk driving, college partying, grades, graduation rates
3. WHERE: United States College and Universities
4. WHY: Need for stress relief, socialization, fitting in, hazing for fraternities and sororities, boredom
5. HOW: Raising taxes on alcohol, less ads for alcohol, tougher sentencing for alcohol related offenses

Putting It Together

My research question: Does drinking alcohol negatively affect college student grades in the United States?

Finding a Topic

Your essay must take a position on some topic related to schooling during the pandemic. Use the databases below to see what people are saying about the pandemic first to get some background information.