Composition

Associate Level Material

Appendix D

Research Plan

As part of your research plan, you must first draft a research question for your research paper that will guide the rest of your writing. A research question, which is more specific and focused than a general topic, is the question that your research paper will be answering. For example, if your general area of interest is social security, a possible research question might ask “How can low-income families save more money if the United States had a reformed social security plan that includes personal retirement accounts?”

As you develop a research question, keep in mind that you will need to research sources to support your topic. Do not pick a one-sided question that will limit your research. Instead, develop a research question that lends itself to further exploration and debate—a question for which you genuinely want to know the answer. Try to pick a research question that is neither too broad, which covers too much, or too narrow, which covers too little. It should be broad enough to be discussed in a short research paper.

|What is your general topic or area of interest? | |

| |My general topic area of interest is drugs. |

| | |

|What is it about your general topic of interest that interests |My general topic of interest that interest me is that I want to |

|you? |know all about the drugs and by doing this I will find out why |

| |people do drugs. |

|What questions do you have about the topic that you would like to|The questions I have...