The document provides guidance on developing a strong research question. It recommends that research questions should be focused, challenging, and grounded. Specifically, questions should not be too broad or too factual, but allow for exploration of why issues exist and are difficult to address. Good questions engage the researcher in an important conversation and can have multiple potential answers. Researchers should also consider relevant search terms, sources to search like databases and websites, and how to evaluate primary and secondary sources for reliability and relevance to the research topic and argument.

1. Focused, Challenging, Grounded
• Focused: not too broad
• What causes depression? -> How has the widespread use of antidepressant
drugs affected teenage suicide rates?
• Challenging: not too factual
• Is autism on the rise? -> Why is autism so difficult to treat?
• Grounded: not too speculative
• Is it wrong to share pornographic personal photos by cell phone? -> What role
should the government play in regulating mobile content?

2. Testing your research question
• Does the question allow you to enter into a research conversation
that you care about?
• Is the question flexible enough to allow for many possible answers?
• Is the question focused, challenging, and grounded?
• Can you show your audience why the question needs to be asked and
why the answer matters?

3. Search Terms
• Key words and phrases to use to find information
• Keep it simple
• Focus terms as you go
• Include key terms like debate, disagreement, opponents, or
proponents to find various positions in the academic conversation

4. Where to search
• Google vs. Google Scholar https://vimeo.com/65600782
• Library Databases
• https://www.uml.edu/library/
• Organized by discipline
• Article Quick Search
• CQ Researcher
• http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/
• Pew Research Center
• https://www.pewresearch.org/

5. Primary and Secondary Sources
Primary Sources
• Include the results of data that
researchers collected on their
own
• Your own surveys, studies,
experiments, interviews, etc.
• Original historical documents
Secondary Sources
• Research collected by and/or
commented on by others
• Scholarly opinions and
interpretations
• Newspapers, magazines,
textbooks, and encyclopedias

6. Evaluating sources
What can sources do in my paper?
• Provide background information or context
• Explain terms or concepts for your readers
• Provide evidence for your argument
• Lend authority to your argument
• Offer counterarguments and alternative interpretations

7. Evaluating sources
• Evaluate as you plan
• What kinds of sources do I need? What do I need these sources to help me do
(define, persuade, inform, etc.)?
• Evaluate as you search
• How can I find the most reliable sources?
• Which sources will help me build my credibility as a researcher?
• Evaluate as you read
• What positions do these sources take in the debate on my topic? What are their
biases?
• How do these sources inform my own understanding and the position I take?
• Evaluate as you write
• How do the sources I’ve chosen help me make my point?
• How do my own ideas fit into the conversation on the topic?

8. Evaluating sources
• Authorship
• Sponsorship
• Purpose and Audience
• Currency