Handout. Katherine Schaefer. Adapted from work from Deb Rossen-Knill and Tanya Bakhmetyeva.
Overview: This handout describes, with examples, the ways that research questions are motivated in scholarly work. The patterns are general; how they are executed depends on the discipline or major. This handout contains examples from the humanities and social sciences (and it is easy to extend to the natural sciences).
Uses: It can be used as a guide to help students identify research questions in their readings and to develop and evaluate their own. Brief comments about writing up a research proposal are also included, so it can serve as a starting point when assigning research proposals or annotated bibliographies.
How do I use it in class? I ask students to read the handout and to contribute one scholarly article from their area of interest.
We then follow up with two different types of activity.
First, I ask students to identify the research question from the introduction (and abstract, if applicable) and relate it to one or more patterns shown in the handout.
Second, we workshop broad research questions, using the suggestions in the handout, and identify ways to narrow the question to something doable.
In my experience, students fear that if they narrow the research question, they won’t be able to meet length requirements for the paper. In this case, I ask students to identify all of the points that they would have to make to answer the narrowed research question, and ask them where they are concerned that they will not be able to answer the research question unambiguously (that’s where the argument is!).
The CARS handout (see separate entry) sometimes helps students to identify the research question. The CONSIDERING COUNTERARGUMENT entry can also help.
The handout can be found at this link.
Citation: Rossen-Knill, D. and Bakhmetyeva, T. (2011). Including students in academic conversations(pp. 50-56). Hampton Press.