Chapter 3: Developing Your Research Question and Proposal

The main points in this chapter are how to develop your research question and how to create a research proposal. This chapter was very helpful to me because it usually takes me awhile to come up with a research question, and how I should take action and maintain the same proposal throughout the whole essay. To develop an effective research question, the first step you need to take is reflecting on your writing situation. Ask yourself if anything has changed, what have you learned about your audience, what kind of document will you write, what sources will be most effective to your essay, etc. By reflecting on your writing situation, it will allow you to figure out what is top priority in your paper and how to organize it to make sense to the reader. Another important thing to do is to generate potential research questions. By going in depth with these research questions, you can easily narrow them down, making it easier to generate your focus point. This chapter also lists the steps to create a research proposal. I’ve never focused on this in an essay but it’s nice to learn the steps so I can use it in future essays.