Why, What, When, Where, Who, or How?

Think Like a Journalist

Another approach to developing a research question is to think like a journalist and consider the 5Ws (and an H).

Starting with your topic, brainstorm a series of questions that use each of the words: who, what, where, when, why, and how.  Not only will this help you develop a research question, it will get you started thinking about keywords for your topic.

For example, if your topic was “western wildfires”, you might ask:

• Who is suffering the greatest financial losses due to wildfires?
• What suppression techniques are used to fight wildfires?
• When did the current trend of catastrophic fires become clear?
• Where are the areas most at risk of wildfires?
• Why are wildfires becoming more frequent and destructive?
• How can states plan for more effective on-the-ground wildfire response?

Note that each of these is an open-ended question, which cannot be answered with a simple yes, no, or number.

Practice

Practice by creating a set of 5Ws (plus H) questions related to the previous practice topic of “climate change”.