How to Formulate Research Questions

A good part of any research depends on the right questions asked. If you are asking wrong questions, your entire research may go off track. Therefore, understanding what questions you need to ask is essential for your research. If you are on the way to your research but don’t know how to start framing the right research questions, we have just the right information for you. This article discusses the process of formulating research questions.

15.06.2021

How to Formulate Research Questions

This article discusses the process of formulating research questions. To give you an opportunity to practice proofreading, we have left a few spelling, punctuation, or grammatical errors in the text. See if you can spot them! If you spot the errors correctly, you will be entitled to a 10% discount.

A good part of any research depends on the right questions asked. For anyone remotely aware of how research works, let us describe it in simple words— you think of a research topic, determine your key objectives for the research, formulate questions based on which you conduct your research, and create a report based on your findings.

In this process, you can see how important the role of a research question is. If you are asking the wrong questions, your entire research may go off track. Therefore, understanding what questions you need to ask is essential for your research. If you are on the way to your research but don’t know how to start framing the right research questions, we have just the right information for you. Let’s start!

Start with a topic for your research questions

First off, you would need a topic for your research to begin with. We suggest you start with a broad topic that can give you the scope to explore. Once you have chosen your area of interest, start exploring other subtopics by using means of concept maps and brainstorming. It is always better to choose an area in which you are genuinely interested. That way, you will be constantly motivated for your research.

Try listing themes and materials that can provide for a good research topic. The main aim of this step is to channel down your options so that you have something concise and precise to work with.

Begin with the initial research for research questions

After you have decided on a topic, it is time to start the initial research. The main purposes of this research are:

  • To know about related matters being currently discussed in the academic and research world.

  • To look for limitations or issues that are not yet answered or explored in your concerned area of interest.

Once you know what has already been researched and what is yet left to be researched, it will get easier for you to understand what you need to look for. Hence, it will become clear to you what kind of research questions you need to ask and find answers for.

For example, you may find out after your initial research that existing research already informs you of certain issues prevalent in your area of interest. However, no one has found any solutions to those issues. In that case, your research questions can be centered on what kind of solution can be presented to resolve the issue.

Decide on a niche to work with

With your initial research, you will have a lot of data and information on your hand that can then help you decide on the particular niche with which you would like to work. As mentioned in the earlier step, you can look for the limitations or gaps in which are not yet explored. You can base your research questions on the areas which have not yet been focused on.

Another way to construct your research questions is by means of problematization. This process is to review and investigate existing views and assumptions by challenging what people already know. For example, existing research may present certain methods as a solution to a prevailing issue. After your research, you discover that maybe the methods are not eco-friendly. You can then form your questions regarding this problem and how there can be a better method. 

Review your questions

Finally, when you have a set of questions for your research, it is time to review them. Though they might seem promising to pursue, they might not be that good from a research perspective. In that case, look out for the following things:

  • How feasible are the questions and their related topics?

  • How interesting are the questions to the community?

  • Do the questions contribute more knowledge to the relevant area of study?

If you need us to make your manuscript shine, contact us unhesitatingly!

Best Edit & Proof expert editors and proofreaders focus on offering manuscripts with proper tone, content, and style of academic writing, and also provide an upscale editing and proofreading service for you. If you consider our pieces of advice, you will witness a notable increase in the chance for your research manuscript to be accepted by the publishers. We work together as an academic writing style guide by bestowing subject-area editing and proofreading around several categorized writing styles. With the group of our expert editors, you will always find us all set to help you identify the tone and style that your manuscript needs to get a nod from the publishers.

English manuscript formatting service

You can also avail of our assistance if you are looking for editors who can format your manuscript, or just check on the particular styles for the formatting task as per the guidelines provided to you, e.g., APA, MLA, or Chicago/Turabian styles. Best Edit & Proof editors and proofreaders provide all sorts of academic writing help, including editing and proofreading services, using our user-friendly website, and a streamlined ordering process.

Get a free quote for editing and proofreading now!

Visit our order page if you want our subject-area editors or language experts to work on your manuscript to improve its tone and style and give it a perfect academic tone and style through proper editing and proofreading. The process of submitting a paper is very easy and quick. Click here to find out how it works.

Our pricing is based on the type of service you avail of here, be it editing or proofreading. We charge on the basis of the word count of your manuscript that you submit for editing and proofreading and the turnaround time it takes to get it done. If you want to get an instant price quote for your project, copy and paste your document or enter your word count into our pricing calculator.

How to Formulate Research Questions

24/7 customer support | Live support

Contact us to get support with academic editing and proofreading. We have a 24/7 active live chat mode to offer you direct support along with qualified editors to refine and furbish your manuscript.

How to Formulate Research Questions

Stay tuned for updated information about editing and proofreading services!

Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn,  Facebook, Instagram, and Medium.

For more posts, click here. 

They Also Read

Academic Writing
How to Effectively Paraphrase: 5 Easy Steps
15.06.2021

For writers starting, paraphrasing might seem quite a difficult thing to master. However, everything can become better with practice and some good advice. Therefore, if you are getting into the world of academic writing and want to know how to paraphrase like a pro, we have a few tips that you might find helpful. This article discusses the basic steps of successful paraphrasing.

Continue Reading
Grammar Rules Academic Writing
Four Common Punctuation Errors in Academic Essays
15.06.2021

Imagine a text written without the periods, commas, and colons. It would certainly be difficult to read. In academic writing, an author may be easily misunderstood when ambiguous sentences are used. Inasmuch as the essence of punctuation marks in writing, especially academic essays, cannot be overemphasized, the appropriate use of these punctuation marks is even more critical.

Continue Reading
Grammar Rules Academic Writing
The Main Differences Between American and British English
15.06.2021

One of the major struggles that English speakers and writers suffer from is the different variants of American English and British English. Mistakes regarding these variants are very common that even experts get confused at times. Therefore, if you are struggling with these differences, don’t worry — you are not alone. Now, what you can do is gradually learn more about the two English variants. We assembled a comprehensive guide that highlights the basic differences between American and British English.

Continue Reading
APA Style Citation Styles Academic Writing
How to Format DOI in APA Style (APA 7th Edition Update)
15.06.2021

The American Psychological Association (APA) introduced the 7th edition of the APA Publication Manual in October 2019. This edition replaced the previous one, the 6th edition of the manual. Since then, several things have changed. The latest edition also updated the formatting of digital object identifiers (DOI) in APA Style. This article addresses when to include DOIs and uniform resource locators (URLs) in APA Style references.

Continue Reading
Academic Writing
How to Write a Narrative Essay: 5 Helpful Tips
15.06.2021

A narrative essay is, to an extent, an anomaly in academic writing. Unlike an expository essay, it does not dissuade academic writers from exercising their creative faculties. Nor does it require them to conduct extensive research and be strictly objective in their writing. However, narrative pieces still require academic writers to abide by the fundamental linguistic requirements of academic writing, such as excluding any instances of slang and other “informal” linguistic elements. This article expounds upon the atypical nature of a narrative essay and divulges the steps to write one.

Continue Reading
Academic Writing Formatting Microsoft Tools
How to Use Track-Changes Feature in Microsoft Word 2021
15.06.2021

Track changes function in Microsoft Word 2021 for macOS is a very handy tool to track your revisions, corrections, changes, edits, and even suggestions and comments while you’re reviewing a document. When an editor or proofreader wants to return a revised document to a client with his/her all revisions visibly marked, and so clients can accept or reject, or the suggested changes appear in the margins of the returned document, he/she needs Track Changes function of Microsoft Word.

Continue Reading
Academic Writing Dissertation & Thesis
How to Layout and Format a Dissertation: 10 Tips
15.06.2021

Who decides the layout requirements for a dissertation? The answer is primarily clear, either your supervisor or department. Nonetheless, each program has a standard guideline determining page numbers and table of contents. Should you use MLA or APA citation style, you follow the MLA format guide or APA guide. Here are 10 useful tips for dissertation layout and formatting.

Continue Reading