Section 3: Your Research Question
By the end of this section you should:
- Be familiar of some of the key factors that go into creating a strong research question
- Understand how to make it your research question searchable
When you start your literature search it is useful to scope it out or test it to see is there enough literature, or perhaps an unmanageable amount. Perhaps you have made your search too limited by including too many concepts? By limiting your search to a specific timeframe or geographic area have you narrowed your search down too far? Are there alternative keywords you could include in your search? Is the scope realistic?
A weak research statement is one that includes your opinion or bias, is too vague or too broad, too localised, not detailed enough and will make it more difficult to find information.
For example: starting with the research topic – Barriers to vaccination. That’s a very broad and vague topic – we need to narrow that down. We could look at:
- Historical context? Particular period of time? Current?
- Geographical context? Particular country? Group of countries?