My topic is unlawful incarceration
my research question is What impact have unlawful incarcerations had brought to the falsely convicted people and how unlawful incarcerations affect the people’s reputation?
List two potential subtopics for the topic you chose.
Choose one of the potential subtopics you listed above and answer the following questions:
How does this subtopic address a current and unresolved issue in your discipline or future profession?
Why do you want to investigate this subtopic?
Does this subtopic have identifiable stakeholder, or people/groups with decision-making authority over it?
List the narrowed topic in the space below. You will work with this topic for the remainder of the exercise.
Identify at least five new key terms from new concepts or issues in the subtopic you chose. List them below.
List some tentative questions about your narrowed topic. Begin by asking “What,” “When,” and “Where” questions to figure out what you need to know. Make sure these questions are open-ended and cannot be answered by “yes” or “no.”
Build a new list of questions from your tentative questions. Ask questions about your issue that are debatable, specific, measurable, and have consequences. To apply this, you must ask “How” and “Why” questions only. This will help you get to the “so what” or “why is this important” aspect of your research question
Explore a “slant,” or a specific approach to your topic and question, by framing your inquiry within certain kinds of implications. Choose at least one of the four listed below and explain your answer.
What are the legal implications?
What are the ethical implications?
What are the professional implications?
What are the mutidisciplinary implications?
Revise and narrow the tentative research question even further by framing it within a specific time and place.
Time frame: Your issue must be recent (evolved within the last 24 months). What is the time frame of your topic?
Place: Anchor your issue within a particular location. Be specific. For example, “The United States” may too broad, but New York City would be a particular location.
Apply all of these steps and come up with revised and narrowed research question below: