Research can be divided into one of two major types: qualitative or quantitative.
Qualitative research is research that gathers the experiences, opinions and behaviors of individuals or groups. Its goal is to understand meaning, attitudes and motivations. It is often collected through interviews or focus groups and results may also include observations of the participants.
Quantitative research is research that gathers measurable or countable data that can be expressed through numbers or statistics.
What about surveys? Surveys can be qualitative or quantitative depending on the structure of the questions. Open-ended questions that allow free form answers would be considered qualitative. In contrast, closed-ended questions such as yes or no, or choosing an answer from a predetermined list of options would be consider quantitative.
Now that you’ve identified a general topic area, it’s time to develop it into a research question. Your background research should help with this step- consider questions you have about your topic that you’d like to explore. All research starts with a question!
In order to create an effective argument, you will need to focus on a specific aspect of your topic. Usually you will find that your topic starts out very broad ("alternative energy") and you'll need to narrow it down (perhaps to a specific alternative energy source like wind, solar, renewables, hydropower, etc.). Always pay attention to your instructor's guidance and assignment requirements while developing a research question.
The following video from Western Kentucky University provides a quick overview to developing a research question:
Tip: Think back to your background research. Which aspects of your general topic stood out to you? What questions do you want to answer with your research?
It may also be useful to make a mind map or concept map, like the one shown here, to visualize how topics and subtopics are related.
Learn about specific terms used in this tutorial on the Definition of Terms page.
Ideally, you want your question to answer “So what?” to ensure it has relevance. Filling in the blanks below can help you focus your preliminary research and questions. (This is not your thesis statement- you won’t develop that until after you’ve done your research.)
Example:
I am researching solar power
because I want to evaluate the pros and cons of its use
in order to show whether or not it is a cost effective method to produce power
