10 Tips for successful research - 2. Be able to state your research question

16 words or less

This may sound completely obvious, but before you undertake any research you should be able to state a single, clear research question that will add to our current knowledge. I challenge our postgrads to state their research question in 16 words or less. A question should begin with a W (who, what, why, when and how – and yes, I know that 'how' doesn't begin with a w…). And it should end with a question mark. 

This is surprisingly hard to do. I ask people to imagine that someone without a background in research has asked them what they are studying. They want to impress this person with how cool and relevant their research is (I try to suggest that there is a potential romantic interest here). So how do you describe your research question in clear simple terms?

If you can state the research question clearly, in simple language, in one sentence, you will be able to work out what data are needed to answer the question, and to identify a suitable study methodology to gather these data. 

But without that initial step in place there is no way of deciding on an appropriate study methodology. 

It's worth spending time trying to phrase the question exactly right. It is the single most important step in your research. When you come up with the exact question you want to ask, make that the title of your research project.

From xkcd

Things that are not research questions

Remember that a research question is a question. I'm interested in patient litigation is not a question, nor is We have data on 120 patients on our deliberate self harm register or I'm planning to do an analysis of patient outcomes using the TILDA dataset.

Tip

Write the introduction section to your paper before you finalise the methodology. This should have three sections: what we already know, what we don't know, and what you decided to do. If these are clear in your head – and properly referenced – all is well.

10 Steps to successful research : 1 – Know the current state of knowledge

The research process begins by identifying a gap in our knowledge or our understanding. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about scientific research or real life. In real life, for example, you might be going to Lisbon and you need to find a good, cheap hotel near the city centre. Or you might need to figure out how to make carrot soup. But hold onto this idea: research fills a gap in our knowledge. If you don't have a knowledge gap, you're not doing research, you're just noodling around on the internet. 

Scientific research involves adding to knowledge. In order to do this, you must know the current state of knowledge, the current theoretical approaches and current best practice in terms of measurement. 

All biostats people have the experience of the person who comes in with a great research idea that looks like this:

The person: I have sixteen patients with rapid cycling mood disorder

Me : So what are you going to research?

The person: The patients with rapid cycling mood disorder

Me : No, I meant what question are you going to research. What do we not know about rapid cycling mood disorder?

The person : Oh…

Of course, those sixteen patients are a research opportunity. But they aren't a research project until we can find a question that will add to our knowledge, and that can be answered with sixteen patients. Often our job supporting student research is to help the student identify the research opportunities in their environment and then to see if any of these opportunities can be used to study a question that we need answered. 

The introduction to your research paper should do three things

1. It should outline the current state of knowledge.

2. It should identify a gap in that knowledge and

3. It should state the research question in clear, simple language.

Being able to write the first two sections is critical. There will be no step 3 – no research question – without the first two steps. 

But what about a great research question that just sort of pops into your head?  I hear you ask? 

Two things: first, this question may have a well-known answer. You need to know the literature to avoid duplicating work already done.

The second is to do with connectedness. Research is like a jigsaw. The best contributions are made by people who find the edge of the work in progress and join up with it. Sciences advances because each piece of research links into the existing body of knowledge like a jigsaw piece. 

So find out where the edge of our knowledge is. That's where you need to go to work.