A research question asks the one thing your paper will answer, in words precise enough that evidence could settle it. The formula on this page fills three slots — broad topic, narrow aspect, population — and drafts six questions from them, one per type: descriptive, comparative, correlational, causal, evaluative and feasibility. A quality check then reads your draft back for the four failures graders flag first. Everything runs in this browser tab.
An honesty note before the formulas: the builder drafts scaffolding, not final wording. Your assignment sheet fixes the genre, the citation style and often the verbs — where the sheet disagrees, the sheet wins. No template below assumes a finding or invents data; every example on the page is labeled illustrative. Expect to edit the generated questions before they appear in a proposal.
The formula builder: three slots, six questions
The builder works the way supervisors talk in office hours. Slot one holds the broad topic — the field exactly as your syllabus names it, wide on purpose. Slot two cuts that field to one narrow aspect: a single variable, mechanism or dispute. Slot three names the population or context, and the rule is reachability — one district beats "society", one firm beats "companies". From those three slots the page drafts six questions, one per research type, and marks the row that matches the type you pick as your focus. Your slots save to this browser only, about a third of a second after you stop typing; Reset erases them. Nothing is uploaded anywhere.
Research question formula builder
100% private — runs in your browserThe field as your course names it — wide on purpose.
One variable, mechanism or dispute inside that field.
Who or where — a group you can actually reach.
The focus row is highlighted in the results — useful once your sheet's verbs point at one type.
What is the current state of [your narrow aspect] in [your population]?
Measures a state — choose it when the sheet says survey, document or report.
How does [your narrow aspect] differ between two groups in [your population]?
Two cases, one yardstick — choose it when the sheet says compare or contrast.
What is the relationship between [your narrow aspect] and [your broad topic] in [your population]?
Two variables moving together — treat the topic slot as your second variable and swap in your own outcome if the pair reads oddly.
What effect does [your broad topic] have on [your narrow aspect] in [your population]?
One driver, one outcome — choose it when the sheet says effect, impact or influence.
How effective is the leading response to [your narrow aspect] in [your population]?
A program judged against its own goal — choose it when the sheet says evaluate or assess.
Is it feasible to study [your narrow aspect] in [your population] with the time and access you have?
The scoping question — ask it before committing to any of the other five.
Showing the six formula templates — type above to fill the slots.
The correlational and causal rows use the broad-topic slot as the second variable — if the pair reads oddly, swap that slot for your own outcome variable after copying. Edit the wording before the proposal; the formulas are scaffolds, not final copy.
The six question types, and when each one earns its place
Six types cover nearly every research question a coursework paper asks. The differences are not stylistic — each type demands different evidence and fails in its own characteristic way. Reading your sheet's verbs against this list usually settles the choice in a minute.
Descriptive: What is…?
A descriptive question measures a state: how much, how often, in what form. There is no second variable and no comparison — one phenomenon, one place, one period. Choose it when your sheet says survey, document, report or map, and when your evidence is counts: official statistics, a questionnaire you can run, records you can read. Its strength is that it is almost always answerable; its weakness is that description alone rarely reaches the higher marking bands, so papers that need analysis pair a descriptive opener with a correlational or causal core. Illustrative example: What is the current state of nighttime screen time among high school students in one district?
Comparative: How does X differ…?
A comparative question puts two or more groups, cases or periods under one fixed yardstick. The yardstick is the whole trick: the criteria must be fixed before you look at either case, because the classic grading trap is criteria that quietly shift to flatter whichever case has more material. Choose it when your sheet says compare, contrast or across, and when the same measure exists for both sides — identical survey items, the same statutory test, the same accounting period. Illustrative example: How do homework policies differ between two state schools in one city?
Correlational: What is the relationship…?
A correlational question asks whether two variables move together, without claiming one drives the other. It is the realistic workhorse of coursework research, because most courses cannot run experiments: you cannot randomize who sleeps badly, but you can measure sleep and grades side by side. The evidence is paired measurements plus an honest statistic, and the discipline is in the verb — the paper says "associated with", never "causes". Choose it when the sheet says relationship, association or link, or when causal wording is out of reach. Illustrative example: What is the relationship between part-time work hours and attendance rates among final-year students?
Causal: What effect does X have on Y…?
A causal question makes the strongest claim on the list: one variable changes another. The claim demands a counterfactual — a group without the treatment, or a clear before-and-after window with something held constant. Choose it when your sheet says effect, impact or influence, and only when a baseline exists: a lab or field experiment if your course runs one, otherwise a natural experiment or a policy change that hit some groups and not others. The characteristic failure is causal language on correlational data — a single before/after count with nothing controlled proves a change happened, not that your variable caused it. Illustrative example: What effect does a later school start time have on first-period test scores in one district?
Evaluative: How effective is…?
An evaluative question judges a program, policy or intervention against its own stated goal. The order of operations matters: name the goal and the criteria first, then gather the outcome measure, because criteria invented after seeing results are advocacy, not evaluation. Choose it when your sheet says evaluate, assess or review, which is common in policy, education and business papers. The evidence triple is the goal, an outcome measure, and ideally a comparison case that did not run the program. Illustrative example: How effective is a banned-phone policy at reducing classroom distractions in one secondary school?
Feasibility: Is it feasible to…?
A feasibility question asks whether the plan can be carried out at all — within the time, access, budget and permissions you actually have. In coursework it appears as a scoping question before a bigger study, and as the main question in business and implementation papers where "can this be done here?" is the honest unknown. The evidence is unglamorous: schedules, budgets, access records, a small pilot. Underrated for a reason graders see weekly — many failed papers died as feasibility questions that were never asked. Illustrative example: Is it feasible to run follow-up consultations by video in one rural clinic within its staffing budget?
From broad topic to named question: the three-slot cut
The hard part is never the template — it is filling slot two honestly. A broad topic ("social media") stays broad until you cut it to one aspect, and a good cut has three properties: it is one variable or mechanism, not a theme park; it sits inside a population you can reach with the time you have; and some evidence type you can physically obtain measures it. Watch the same field narrow three different ways:
| Broad field | Named question (illustrative) | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Climate change | What effect have warmer winters had on ice-road freight seasons in one northern county? | Causal |
| Employee motivation | What is the relationship between shift-schedule transparency and overtime take-up among warehouse staff? | Correlational |
| School uniforms | How do uniform policies differ between two state schools in one city? | Comparative |
| Telemedicine | Is it feasible to run follow-up consultations by video in one rural clinic within its staffing budget? | Feasibility |
Notice what the cuts have in common: every question names where the data lives. "Climate change" points at a library; "ice-road freight seasons in one northern county" points at county transport records, weather archives and a local paper. If your narrowed question cannot name its evidence home, the cut is not finished — drop to a smaller case rather than a bigger claim. And if you have not picked a topic yet, the term paper topics bank hands you one hundred narrowed candidates across ten fields, every row tagged by the paper type it suits.
The quality check: four failures graders flag first
A drafted question still needs an audit, and four failures do most of the damage in feedback comments. The check below reads your question and runs all four: it flags yes/no openers (questions a single word can answer), double-barreled wording (two questions wearing one coat), a missing population (questions about "people" in general answer nothing), and unanswerable scope (too vague, too wide, or asking for an opinion rather than evidence). The checks are word-based heuristics — honest, mechanical, and no substitute for your supervisor's read — but they catch the slips that survive proofreading because the writer knows what they meant.
Question quality check
4 automatic checks — nothing storedPaste a row from the builder, or type one. The four checks run as you type; nothing you paste here is saved.
1. Not a yes/no questionwaiting
Starts with Is / Are / Do / Does / Can / Should / Will… one word settles those. Rewrite with What, How, Why or To what extent.
2. One variable, one questionwaiting
Two connectors — "and", "or", "versus", a comma chain — usually mean two papers in one. Split at the conjunction and keep the one your sources answer better.
3. A named population or contextwaiting
A question about "people in general" answers nothing. Name the group and the place: students, nurses, one firm, one district.
4. Researchable in one studywaiting
Under eight words is usually too vague; over forty-five is usually too wide. Opinion words like "should" ask for advocacy, not evidence.
Five research-question mistakes that show up in feedback
Question problems surface in the margins long before style problems do, because a broken question forces every later section to compensate:
- The yes/no opener. "Is social media harmful?" can be answered with one word, so the paper has nowhere to go after paragraph one. The fix is a What/How/Why rewrite with the population named.
- The double-barreled question. "How does stress and diet affect sleep?" asks two things and answers neither well. Split it, run the three-source test on each half, and keep the one with better evidence.
- The population nobody named. "Among people" is not a population. The grader cannot tell who was studied, and you cannot either once the literature search starts.
- The unanswerable scope. "What is the history of advertising?" needs an era, a place and a medium before a database search stands any chance. Scope is a kindness to your future self.
- The type mismatch. A sheet that says "compare" answered with a descriptive survey, or causal claims built on correlational data, fights the rubric on every page. Match the verb to the type from the list above.
Every one of these is cheaper to fix in week 2 than in week 9, which is the entire argument for running the quality check before the proposal, not after the first draft.
Question drafted, deadline already close?
Turning a question into a finished paper is sources, structure, drafting and the formatting your sheet insists on. If the calendar got away from you, a quoted, deadline-bound writer can take your question and materials from proposal to a referenced draft while the argument stays yours. Your question, your structure, your voice. The form below is the way to ask.
What this page cannot do
The honest limits, because a page about asking questions should survive an audit:
- It cannot read your assignment sheet. Genre, length, citation style and the exact verbs live there. Where the sheet disagrees with a template row, the sheet wins every time.
- It cannot promise your sources exist. A question is researchable in principle and still fail in your library. Run the three-source test before committing: two academic sources that argue with each other, plus one primary source you can physically reach.
- The templates draft scaffolds, not final wording. Generated questions are start lines. Expect to sharpen the verb, swap the second variable and tighten the population before anything appears in a proposal.
- The quality check is a heuristic. Four word-based checks catch the common slips; they cannot judge whether your question suits your field's norms or your supervisor's taste. Treat the verdict as a spellchecker, not a marker.
- It stores almost nothing. The three builder slots and the focus type save to one browser key; the quality-check text, quiz and poll never persist at all. Question drafts belong in your notes.
From question to thesis, hypothesis and abstract
The question sits at the middle of a pipeline the rest of the shelf finishes. Upstream, the term paper topics bank supplies the topic when none is assigned. Downstream, the thesis statement generator compresses your intended answer into the one-sentence claim the paper defends, and the hypothesis pair builder converts a causal or correlational question into the null-and-alternate pair that methods sections expect. When the paper is done, the research paper abstract formula summarizes what you found in six sentences that answer the question you set. The study guides hub keeps the whole research shelf together, and the free writing tools cover the mechanical neighbors a finished paper also owes — word counts, citations and readability. One page, one job: this one stops at the question.
Quiz: five questions on asking well
Five questions on the calls question-writing makes: the narrow cut, the yes/no trap, type recognition, the split and feasibility. Every wrong answer reveals the right one.
1. The shortest distance between a broad topic and a workable research question runs through:
2. "Is remote work good?" fails first as a research question because:
3. Which of these is a causal research question?
4. Your question asks about stress and diet in one breath. The standard repair:
5. A feasibility question is the right pick when:
Frequently asked questions
What is a good research question example I can borrow the shape of?
Take the school-start example used on this page: 'What effect does a later start time have on first-period test scores among high school students in one district?' It works because it names one variable (start time), one outcome (test scores), one population (one district's high school students) and one question type (causal). Copy the shape, not the content: your version swaps in your own aspect, population and type from the builder, and the wording stays yours.
How do I turn a broad topic into a research question?
Fill the three slots in order. First cut the field to one narrow aspect: one variable, mechanism or dispute. Second, name a population or context you can actually reach, such as one district, one firm or one age group. Third, pick the question type your evidence supports, using the six formulas above. 'Social media' plus 'nighttime screen time' plus 'high school students in one district' becomes six drafted questions in seconds, each narrow enough to answer with sources you can hold.
Which question type should my paper use?
Let the assignment verb decide. Compare demands comparative; evaluate demands evaluative; argue suits causal or evaluative; describe or survey suits descriptive. If your course cannot run experiments, correlational replaces causal, because you measure relationships instead of effects. Feasibility fits when the real risk is access: time, permissions or data. When the sheet lists several verbs, the builder's focus selector marks the row that matches, and nothing stops you from drafting all six and choosing after a source check.
Can a research question be a yes/no question?
Usually not. A yes/no question lets one word settle it, so the paper has nowhere to go after the answer. Rewrite with What, How, Why, or To what extent: 'Is remote work good?' becomes 'How does remote work affect team communication in distributed software teams?', and the answer becomes a measured claim your sources can argue about. The quality check above flags the yes/no pattern automatically, along with the missing population that usually travels with it.
Does this page store my topic and question drafts?
Your three builder slots and the focus type save to one local storage key, csw-rqg-v1, about a third of a second after you stop typing, so a reload restores the six drafted questions. Reset erases the key. The quality-check text, quiz answers and poll votes are never stored, because a pasted draft is a draft, not a setting. Nothing leaves your device; there is no account and no server copy. To keep the questions, use Copy all 6 and paste them into your notes.
Did the builder hand you six questions worth testing?