Once you have a topic, you should start asking questions that can drive your research. I call them research questions, but that can be a little confusing. These are not just questions which researchers answer with research. These are questions which motivate research. They are questions which actually have many possible answers, and really no one can say they know which is right. Research contributes to a debate. Hence a research question is a debatable, open-ended question.
Aristotle once said:
Not every problem, nor every thesis, should be examined, but only one which might puzzle one of those who need argument, not punishment or perception. For people who are puzzled to know whether one ought to honour the gods and love one’s parents or not need punishment, while those who are puzzled to know whether snow is white or not need perception. The subjects should not border too closely upon the sphere of demonstration, nor yet be too far removed from it; for the former cases admit of no doubt, while the latter involve difficulties too great for the art of the trainer. (Aristotle, Topics, Book I, Part 11)
In other words, if you’re wondering why the snow is white, then just Google it. If you are wondering whether Piss Christ (Serrano 1987) or The Holy Virgin Mary (Ofili 1996) is art, or if there is a meaning to life, then you will be talking forever because everyone has their own answer. What Aristotle meant was only some questions are really worth asking. Different kinds of questions lead to different kinds of knowledge. There are, if you read his statement closely, three distinct types of questions:
Type I. Questions of fact. These are questions for which there is only one possible answer. Asking “What is the capital of Australia?” is not debated by anyone because there is simply a factual answer which is either right or wrong. It is not simply to say that these questions are easy. One might need to research obscure facts, but ultimately there is no deeper understanding of the facts gained by acquiring them.
Type II. Questions of belief. These are questions which people may disagree on, but for which there is no definitive answer because the answer turns on values or opinions. Questions such as Is Canberra a good site for the federal capital? or What makes good art? or Why does God permit evil? depend on people’s beliefs. They may have reason for their beliefs, but ultimately no amount of research will prove one answer right or wrong.
It’s the sweet spot of the unknown that we want to aim for (this is Aristotle, after all). Are there questions for which we don’t know the answer, but could know, if only we thought more deeply? Yes, and they are…:
Type III: Research questions. These are questions which motivate research, not simply to find a factual answer, but to complicate our understanding of the topic (see Choosing a topic). Research questions force us to think about things in a new way. The answer to a research question is not a fact, nor is it an opinion, it is an explanation of the deeper reasons for why things are.
That word—why—is, I believe, key to Type III questions. The best questions are the child’s questions: why questions. Why does the dog chase the cat? Why do we dream? Why is this sign post wearing a sweater? Why do people fight? Why are there people? Why is there something, rather than nothing? Why questions are, in other words, questions whose answers develop our knowledge, thinking, perspective, and indeed, our wisdom. A child asks in order to grow.
Actually… it’s panhandling for questions
The only thing people on the internet like to do more than use rhetoric is to talk about rhetoric. You may have seen memes that smarmily correct people for misusing the phrase begging the question, which is an English expression for a rhetorical trick, petito principii. Thanks.
A lot of discourse in the media does something a little similar. It raises a question in the mind of the audience. But the question itself presupposes another bigger claim which is simply assumed to be true, but never explicated, let alone demonstrated.
Consider for instance the work of John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, who examined the processes by which San people of South Africa claimed ownership of intellectual property based on their traditional knowledge of Hoodia tea (Comaroff and Comaroff 2009). To make one’s own argument about this case, one might ask:
Question: How does the logic of neoliberal capitalism cause communities to define themselves as corporate, property-owning bodies?
That’s interesting…. How??
There is a problem to be solved, particularly when this is anchored in a real place and time. We do want to dwell in the space opened up by the question.
But this phrasing of the question is distracting us. Any answer to this question would simply be descriptive. It might use a lot of abstract, conceptual words like neoliberalism and capitalism and globalization. But they would not be refering to explanations of facts. They would just be restating the facts. This is not, then, a genuinely debatable question.
In fact, the questions is a statement in disguise. To ask this question is to presuppose another general claim, which is that neoliberal capitalism does cause certain people in certain situations to redefine their collective identity. This is one possible way to make a claim about a set of facts about social change.
When learning about one’s topic, it’s natural to draw conclusions about the facts. These instincts are good, but any conclusion is just one among many. Consider your conclusion as one of several possible answers to a truly open question, a question of Type III. When you arrive at a conclusion, step back and say, I can argue for this idea, but to effectively present my argument, I need to frame it as one possible answer to an open question. What is the question to which my conclusion is one possible answer?
This question will probably be much more general, perhaps even a little scary in how big it is. It will need an answer that is more than just a description of how. It will also probably be much more simple, and grounded in the specific facts you find about your topic. The deepest questions are basic in this sense.
Forget everything you learned in high school
Incidentally, these are not the ‘levels of questions’ taught in many high schools (Bloom et al. 1956). Also, as one can see, Type I questions blur into Type III questions, so this schema is not absolute either. Think of this way: Type I questions lead to information on which we base our understanding of a topic, and that leads to problems. We solve these by asking Type III questions.
Many Type I questions are very hard to answer. What is the weight of Saturn? How many exoplanets are there? Yet just because people search for the answer does not mean that the answer is the goal. The answer changes the way we see things, and then we get into the real questions. Why are there so few Earth-like exoplanets? Why do Earth-like exoplanets, like Earth, have life?
Research questions have many possible answers, but only one is yours
A Type III question has more than one possible answer, but some answers are better than others. You support a thesis statement with reasoning and evidence because there is more than one possible answer, but you want to show that some answers are better than others. Develop a research question on your topic, and then try to think of all the possible thesis statements one could put forward as answers.
References
Aristotle. 350 BCE. Topics, Book I. Translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/topics.1.i.html. Accessed January 24, 2015.
Bloom, B. S., Engelhart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H., Krathwohl, D. R. 1956. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. New York: David McKay Company.
Comaroff, John L., and Jean Comaroff. Ethnicity, Inc. University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Ofili, Chris. 1996. The Holy Virgin Mary. Oil and mixed media on canvas.
Serrano, Andres. 1987. Piss Christ. Photograph.