As you learn more about your topic, start asking yourself questions about your topic. As you read the literature, is there anything missing? Are there questions that nobody has asked before? Parts of this topic that have not been written or thought about? If you're writing about something that has been written about before, do you agree or disagree with what the existing sources say? If you agree, how could you build on those ideas in order to create your own? Does the existing research raise new questions, ones that you could answer? If you disagree, how would you go about questioning or challenging those ideas?
Coming Up With Your Research Question
As you formulate your research question, you should begin by learning more about your topic. There are many different resources you might use to do so.
Reference Sources, like the links and boxes on this page, are good for learning the basics. These will give you primarily factual information, with little or no interpretation or analysis. This is a good start; you'll have a hard time following more detailed sources without this foundation of knowledge to build on.
Scholarly Sources are the big leagues, so to speak. The authors here will always include analysis or interpretation, and will support their interpretation and ideas with evidence. These sources will go into much more depth, and consider or explore their ideas fully. They can help you learn what has already been said or written or thought about your topic.