← Chapter 8
English Composition · Chapter 8

The Question Lever Board

A topic is a place you can wander in for a week; a research question is a destination you can arrive at. When a question is too big you almost never need a new topic — you need to pull four levers: population, setting, period, and angle. Pull them one at a time below and watch the question tighten, the literature shrink to something readable, and the three tests turn green.
Pick a topic to narrow
Lever 1 Population — who?
Lever 2 Setting — where?
Lever 3 Period — when?
Lever 4 Angle — what about it?
Lever board

Your question right now

Rough literature size
—
Bounded 0
Arguable 0
Answerable 0

Pressure test — run this before you open a database