18 Research Should Start with Questions, Not Answers
18 Research Should Start with Questions, Not Answers
Emily A. Wierszewski; Liz Delf; Rob Drummond; and Kristy Kelly
Adapted by Liz Delf, Rob Drummond, and Kristy Kelly
Our collective belief in the importance of definite answers impacts many areas of our lives, including how we understand the process and purpose of research. Specifically, it leads to a thesis-first research model in which research is only used to verify our existing ideas or theses. In this model, there is no room for doubt or ambiguity. We assume we need to know the answers to our problems or questions before the process gets underway before we consult and evaluate what others have said.
Research can be productively used in this way to verify assumptions and arguments. Sometimes what we need is just a little support for an idea, a confirmation of the best approach to a problem, or the answer to simple questions. For example, we might believe the new iPhone is the best smartphone on the market and use research on the phone’s specs to prove we’re right. This kind of thesis-first approach to research becomes harmful, however, when we assume that it is the only or the most valuable way to conduct research.
Evidence of this widespread assumption is easy to find. A simple search for the research process on Google will yield multiple hits hosted by academic institutions that suggest a researcher needs a thesis early in the research process. For instance, the University of Maryland University College’s Online Guide to Writing and Research suggests that a thesis should be developed as soon as source collection gets underway, though that thesis may change over time. This strategy is endorsed by multiple research library websites, such as the University of Minnesota.
And yet genuine inquiry—the kind of research that often leads to new ideas and important choices—tends to begin with unsettled problems and questions rather than with thesis statements and predetermined answers. Wernher von Braun, an engineer whose inventions advanced the US space program in the mid-twenty-first century, famously describes research as “What I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing” (qtd. in Pfeiffer 238).
The understanding of research as discovery is echoed in the recent “Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education,” a document authored by the Association of College and Research Librarians (ACRL). They write that research often begins with open-ended questions that are “based on information gaps or reexamination of existing, possibly conflicting, information” (7). In other words, research isn’t just for backing up our hunches. It can, and should, also be used as a method of investigating areas of uncertainty, curiosity, conflict, and multiple perspectives.
As the ACRL’s framework also emphasizes, when researchers review published source material around their topic, points of disagreement will be discovered; these points are expected as scholars propose ideas to address complicated issues. When we