by George Brosi

The key to writing an excellent research paper is having a good research question. More than anything else, the research paper revolves around the research question. Sure, all academic papers need to have a thesis, but the thesis is the answer to the research question. A good research paper focuses exclusively on the research question, but it goes beyond the thesis. The paper must put the thesis in context by defining terms, giving some background and supplying conventional answers to the research question and the lines of argument which support them. Only then can the argument for the paper's specific thesis be meaningful.

The key to both having a good research question and a good thesis is recognizing that both are dynamic. Although in many ways the research writer emulates the lawyer in the courtroom in arguing for the thesis, the research writer's flexibility in adapting the thesis is one very important way that the courtroom analogy breaks down. If investigation of a subject leads the researcher to a change of position, that is fine. All the background information and the lines of argument discovered are still useful. The research writer can ordinarily simply make a few changes especially in the opening and closing paragraphs. In contrast, if a defense lawyer decides a client is guilty, that is quite a different matter!

A researcher may, for example, be interested in juvenile justice. The first formulation of a research question may be: "Why is society letting criminals run wild just because they are underage?" and a preliminary thesis statement may be: "Let's punish kids instead of letting them get away with crimes." In order to deal with this question, the researcher must first find out how the juvenile justice system works now. The term, juvenile, has to be defined, and a decision needs to be made about whether the paper will focus on state, local or federal crimes. As investigation continues, the answers to questions of juvenile justice begin to sort themselves out along conservative and liberal lines, but there are also some more innovative approaches being tried some places. The research question can be changed to focus on some of these interesting new ideas. As investigation continues, the researcher may find that specific legislation is being advanced to improve the system. Ultimately, the research question may become: "Should KRS 5437 be passed?" and the thesis may be: "KRS 5437 should be passed to protect the citizenry from juvenile crime." But it is also possible that the researcher may naturally gravitate towards articles about crime victims and end up doing the paper on ways that the criminal code can compensate and respond to the victims of crime.

To keep thinking clear, the researcher should always have a research question in mind but always be willing to change it.