Skip to Main Content

Research Fundamentals: Step 1: Understand Your Assigment

Know Your Topic

Read and Understand Your Assignment

What information has your instructor given you about your research assignment? Check:

  • Moodle
  • Your syllabus
  • Your notes
  • Assignment handouts

Assignment information should provide you with all the information you need to get started and complete the assignment successfully, including the length, focus, format, and purpose of your research.

With the information you have, can you answer the following questions?:

  • When is the final assignment due? Are there dates for submitting a proposal or multiple drafts?
  • Is there a page number requirement or speech time requirement? If so, how long?
  • How many sources do you need? Are there specific types of sources you must use or cannot use?

If you cannot answer these questions with the information you have, contact your instructor.

In addition to the assignment requirements, you should also consider your own circumstances:

  • How busy will you be between now and when the assignment is due?
    • What other assignments (for this class as well as others) do I have due between now and the final due date?
  • When can you schedule time to do research and complete the assignment?
    • Don't feel like you need to sit down for hours at a time. Even small chunks of time add up to enough time to finish your final assignment. 
  • Is there anything you need to learn to successfully complete this assignment?
    • Do you know how properly format and cite your paper?
  • Do you know where to go for assistance with research? with writing?

Task Words

Task words are the words or phrases that briefly tell you what to do. Look for these when reading your assignment to get an idea of what research needs to be done to fullfill your assignment. You can check out this list to get an idea of some common ones you may see in your assignments. 

Questions to Ask

As you look at background information sources, consider questions related to your topic - what do you need to know in order to write knowledgeably on this topic?

Questions can help you narrow your focus and help you identify the information sources you might want to seek out.

  • WHO - Who are the experts? Who is impacted? Consider demographics associated with your topic: for example, can you limit your research to a particular age group or population?
  • WHAT - What other terms are associated with this topic? What do we know? What don't we know? Knowing the what allows you to create your research question and search effectively for it. 
  • WHEN - When has this topic been most important? Consider limiting your topic to a specific timeframe. You may need the most current research available, or you may want to look at historical data. 
  • WHY - Why is this topic important or interesting?
  • WHERE - Where does this topic have the most relevance, either in general or for your research question? 
  • HOW - How does this topic impact or affect us - negatively or positively? Consider qualifications such as effects, causes, benefits, impact, etc.

Developing Your Research Question

Using a Topic to Generate Your Research Question(s)

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.
  2. Questions give you a way of evaluating answers.
    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.
  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. 

Broadening a Research Question

A question that is too narrow or specific may not retrieve enough information. If this happens, broaden the question. Most questions have multiple contexts and varying levels of specificity. For example, if you originally wanted to look at how X topic impacts people in X state, you may not find much research to support your question. You may have to expand to a region of the United States.

Narrowing a Research Question

A question that is too broad may retrieve too much information. Here are some strategies for narrowing the scope of a question.
You can use these limiters individually or in combinations.

Limit Explanation
Time The last ten years? Before the 1900s?
Place Local social norms & values, economic & political systems, or languages
Population Gender, age, occupation, ethnicity, nationality, educational attainment, species, etc.
Viewpoint Social, legal, medical, ethical, biological, psychological, economic, political, philosophical