PROFESSOR: Ever hear
about writer's block? Yeah, did you know
it's an excuse writers use to take a really
long break whenever they want? True story. Writing is a skill,
like tennis or cooking. A cook never looks at a
raw egg and says, drat. Nothing I can do about
this here raw egg. I have cook's block. No. Problems have solutions. When writers want more ideas,
they read and they take notes. To find a topic for
a college paper, you can read course
materials, reference works, like encyclopedias,
or Gale Ebooks, one of our reference
databases, or anything else you can find that relates
to the subject you're going to write about. Just keep reading, filling your
brain with relevant information until a topic reveals
itself to you. Of course, finding a topic
is only the first step. Before you can move
forward, that topic needs to be framed as
a research question. A good research question
is what turns, hey, here are a bunch of facts I
learned about car accidents, into something meaningful. A research question
describes what you want your research,
and therefore your paper, to address. But some kinds of questions
are better than others. A good research question is an
open-ended research question. A bad research question is
a closed research question. Here's the difference. Using the topic
of car accidents, an open-ended research
question might be, what's the most sensible way
to reduce traffic fatalities on the highway? An open-ended research
question can only be answered using a combination
of facts and interpretations of those facts. In other words, not everyone
who asks the same question will come up with
the same answer. The answers to
open-ended questions are subject to debate. And debate is what you want
for a persuasive college paper. For example, let's say
there is a crazy place where they dropped a speed
limit to 20 miles per hour everywhere, even
on the interstate, and nobody has died in
a car wreck there since. What does that mean for us? Does it mean that everyone
everywhere should drive really slowly all the time? Or does it mean the
people need to slow down on dangerous stretches of road? Or does it mean
that saving lives comes at the cost to
never getting anywhere at a reasonable speed? Those are all different
interpretations of the same set of facts. You might like some better
than others, but none of them are wrong. Unlike an open-ended question,
a closed question actually has a right or wrong answer. Here are some examples. How many teenagers died
in collisions in 2017? What's the legal
driving age in Colorado? What are the punishments for
drunk driving in Minnesota? Anyone who asks these
questions will come up with the same answers because
they're facts, nothing that requires interpretation. So when you're looking
at a research question and want to know if it's open
ended or not, remember this. If it can be answered with a
fact, it's a closed question. If it can only be answered by a
fact combined with an opinion, then it's an
open-ended question. Once again, if the
answer can be a fact, that means the
question is closed and won't make for a
good paper on its own. If the answer requires
facts and opinions, that means the question is open. And open questions
make for good papers.
