Colgate students self-report having difficulty getting started with research assignments and defining topics. This assignment is intended to assist students to develop appropriate questions that can be investigated through engagements with scholarly literature.  This assignment should be used as one step in a sequenced set of assignments culminating in an academic paper, or another kind of project.

Developing Research Questions

1. One page personal reflection - write a one page personal reflection responding to the following question:
   • What are you hoping to learn about the topic of this class?
2. Finding a relevant question - draw a question that interests you from the one page personal reflection. 
    
3. Search for journal articles and/or book chapters that are in dialog with your question.  That is to say, find articles that address, fill in gaps, change your thinking, etc., about your question.  Create a bibliography of five citations that you think inform your question the best. 

NOTE to Professor: Beginning this part of the assignment could involve having a librarian meet with the class to introduce article resources.

4. Refining your question - Based on what you learned about your question by reviewing journal articles and book chapters, you will probably want to refine your researchable question a bit. 
    
5.  Search for more journal articles or book chapters, only this time try to closely match the articles to the most recent version of your researchable question.

NOTE to Professor: Consider having students meet a librarian (office visit, in class, or at the reference desk) to discuss avenues for finding articles that closely relate to their new questions, e.g., subject-specific databases.  This must be arranged in advance by contacting your library liaison. Students should be made aware that individual meetings with a librarian might lead to further development of their question based on engagement with newly found scholarly material, or it could also validate the appropriateness of the materials already located.