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The Research Question in the Sciences

This guide will help you formulate a quality research question when dealing with topics in the sciences.

The Research Too broad

Question
A research question is too broad when it attempts to cover too much
information or answer too many questions.  You can tell your topic is too
Types of Research
broad if:
Questions

Your preliminary search for information on the topic produces thousands,

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Writing a Good or tens of thousands of resources on that topic.
Research

You can not cover all the components of the topic in detail within the
Question
scope of the project.

All you can provide is general information because there are too many
Too broad
details to cover with any real depth.

Too narrow What to do?

identify one aspect of your topic and focus on that. i.e. study the change
Conduct the
in mass in one reactant in a chemical reaction and not the entire family of
research
reactants.
yourself!
Concentrate on one specific type of organism, substance, or energy
Forming a rather than the entire "family"  i.e. monarch butterfly migration  vs.
Hypothesis butterfly migration (implying all butterflies)

Limit your topic geographically  i.e. Bats of Missouri vs. Bats of North
Primary Research America

Limit your topic chronologically  i.e.  the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
vs. all earthquakes along the San Andreas fault line.
Social Sciences and
Professional Studies
Librarian, Interim STEM
Librarian
 Too narrow
A research question is too narrow if you are unable to find enough information
that addresses that question.  It is possible that the question has been asked
so few times that no quality findings have ever been reported on the question
or the question has never been tested to begin with.

Scott Norwood To broaden the question, 

Email Me Expand the number of subjects in your study.  Rather than focus on
one species of animal, one specific type of mineral, or one species of
Scott is currently offline. plant, focus your question on a group of similar fishes  i.e. "minnows" vs.
"bluntnose minnows," "sulfides" vs. "chalcopyrite" or group of plants, i.e.
Schedule Appointment "cedar trees" vs. "eastern red cedar" trees.

Expand the geographic region of the study.  If you can't locate information
Contact:
on the nesting habits of eastern bluebirds in Johnson County, Missouri,
1115 JCKL
focus on the nesting habits of eastern bluebirds in the state of Missouri,

office phone
(660) 543-4149
or the Missouri valley.

Expand the timespan of the study.  Instead of studying the population



trends of goblin sharks during the Halocene epoch, study their population
Subjects:
trends during the Quaternary period.
• Agricultural
Science
Use the research that you have conducted on the topic that you have

• Athletic Training found to be too narrow to brainstorm similar, yet broader, topics.
• Aviation
Maintenance Conduct the research yourself!
Management
• Aviation If you have developed a viable research question and are unable to find
Management articles or other academic matieral that addresses that question, then it may
• Aviation Safety be up to you to do the research yourself!  Your research question will guide the
• Biology
research that is needed and  conducted.  You could be an important
• Chemistry
contributor who adds to the vast, and growing body of scientific knowledge.
• Coaching
• Corrections
• Criminal Justice
• Crisis and
Disaster
Management
• Dietetics
• Dietetics
• Electronics Forming a Hypothesis
Technology
• Engineering The research question is the question that you hope to answer with your
Technology survey of resources, experiment or study.  As noted elsewhere in this libguide,
• Fire Science the author should be careful that their research question does not have too
• Fitness and narrow or too broad of a scope.
Wellness
• Foods A well written research question will then help you construct a hypothesis.
• Forensic Science  The purpose of the hypothesis is to manipulate variables related to the
• Geographic subject to attempt to answer your research question.  In this way, the
Information hypothesis and research question are closely related.
Systems
• Geography In order to have a successful research question and hypothesis, it must be
• Health Education something that is testable and gives scientifically measurable results.  The
• Health Studies data from these tests will allow you to answer your research question.  Too
• International
often, hypotheses are constructed that lead to experiments that are not easily
Justice
measurable, making it difficult to answer your research question definitively.


• Juvenile Justice
• Kinesiology   
• Mathematics
• Medical
Laboratory
Science
• Military Science
• Networking
Technology
• Nursing
• Nutrition
• Occupational
Safety and
Health
• Physical
Education
• Physics
• Professional
Pilot
• Psychology
• Radiologic
Technology
• Safety
 • Safety
• Science
• Speech-
Language
Pathology
• Sport Nutrition
• Systems
Engineering
Technology

Last Updated: Aug 3, 2018 3:41 PM URL: https://guides.library.ucmo.edu/c.php?g=695854  Print Page

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Tags: agriculture, animal_science, aquatic_science, biology, chemistry, meteorology, microbiology, science

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