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Ancient History Resources: Ask a Question

A resource guide to topics in ancient world history, designed especially for 8th grade researchers

Ask a Question

Now that you know a bit about your topic, you can ask an interesting and important question.

That question will guide the rest of your research, that is, once you have a question you can look for information in order to answer it.

What makes a question interesting and important?

A good question for a research project takes time to formulate. You need to know a pretty good amount of background information before you can ask a question that is interesting and important.

 

What does it mean for a question to be interesting and important?

Such a question:
  • Makes you wonder; emotionally, you may feel excited to discover an answer.
  • Leads to other questions.
  • Is open-ended and may have more than one possible answer. You will find an answer through your research, but someone else could come to a different answer.
  • Makes your reader care about the topic and understand its significance.
  • Explores significance to history, culture, and innovation beyond the person, place, thing, or event.

Consider:

  • What is interesting to you about this topic?
  • What are you trying to accomplish (what are the requirements of the assignment)?
  • How much information is available to you? 
  • What is the scope of this project (how much time do you have)?
 
If you don't feel ready to formulate a question, return to the explore phase!

Identify Your Research Question

Review your notes up to this point. What ideas and questions are there?

 

Reconsider what you've found in your notes and sources. What is interesting? What has stood out so far?

 

Visualize your questions by making clusters of related ideas. When you encounter new ideas, start a new cluster. Write a question that represents each cluster. You can use the question prompts below to help you.

 

Identify the most interesting of your questions. Evaluate each of them using the questions under "Consider" on this page. Talk it over with your teacher, members of your class, or librarian.

 

Remember, your question may change a little as you continue to dig deeper. That is okay. Your thesis will be your answer to this question, revealed to you through your continued research.

You're doing great!

Question Prompts

Using the question starters in this table, practice coming up with a few questions about your topic. Not all of them will be very good, but when you identify an interesting and important question, make note! This is your chance to make this project unique, exciting, and completely your own.

 

  would did could can
How        
Why