Testing Your Research Question

Developing a research question for a literature review is often an iterative process and the exact specification and parameters of your question may change as you begin to search the literature.  Firming up your research question requires an initial survey of the literature to gauge both the volume of information available to specifically address your question and the nature of this information.

Once you conducted some exploratory searches of the literature you may find that the topic you have selected is too broad and that you are overwhelmed with information. As well as the volume of information received you might find that entire book chapters or other extensive pieces of work are dedicated to answering similar questions – a good indication that your topic is too broad.  In these cases, you will need to focus or narrow your research question further in order to return a manageable and meaningful body of literature.

Alternatively, you may find that you have made your research question too specific and that you are not finding sufficient quantities of relevant literature for your review to be viable.  In this case you will need to broaden the focus of your research question.

Where possible, we always recommend consulting with your supervisor in developing and deciding on a research question.