lesson 5-6

• Guidelines in Choosing a Research Topic

  1. Interest in the subject matter pushes you to research, investigate, or inquire about it with full motivation, enthusiasm, and energy

  2. Collecting a lot of information as evidence to support your claims about your subject matter from varied forms of literature like books, journals, and newspapers, among others, is part and parcel of any research work

  3. The topic is relevant if it yields results that are instrumental in societal improvements. It is timely if it is related to the present

  4. This makes you link your choosing with course requirements

  5. Before sticking fully to your final choice, assess your research abilities in terms of your financial standing, health condition, mental capacity, needed facilities, and time allotment to enable you to complete your research
• Sources of Research Topics

  • Mass media communication – press (newspapers, ads, TVs, radio, films, etc)
  • Books, Internet, peer-reviewed journals, government publications
  • Professional periodicals like English Forum, The Economist, Law Review, etc
• Research topics to be avoided: Controversial topics are those that depend greatly on the writer’s opinion, which may tend to be biased or prejudicial. Facts cannot support topics like these
• Research topics to be avoided: Highly technical subjects are difficult for beginners as they require advanced study, technical knowledge, and vast experience
• Research topics to be avoided: Hard to investigate subjects are those with no available reading materials about them or if such materials are not up-to-date
• Research topics to be avoided: Too broad subjects prevent giving a concentrated or in-depth analysis. The remedy is to narrow or limit the topic to a smaller one
• Research topics to be avoided: Too narrow subjects are so limited or specific that extensive searching or reading for information is necessary
• Research topics to be avoided: Vague subjects prevent having a clear focus on the paper
• Sources of Research Topics

  • Mass media communication – press (newspapers, ads, TVs, radio, films, etc)
  • Books, Internet, peer-reviewed journals, government publications
  • Professional periodicals like English Forum, The Economist, Law Review, etc
  • General periodicals such as Reader’s Digest, Time Magazine, Women’s Magazine, etc
  • Previous reading assignments in your other subjects
  • Work experience- clues to a researchable topic from full-time to part-time jobs, OJT’s experience, fieldwork, etc
• Research begins with a problem
• Research problem enables you to generate set of research questions


  1. Ex. Research on to the solution to your community’s flood problem

  2. Solution: … the need to construct anti-flood structures, or the practicability of more footbridges in the area
• Background of the Problem
• Research Questions


  1. Aims at investigating specific aspects of the research problem

  2. Though deduced from the general or mother question, one specific question may lead
• Guidelines in Formulating Research Questions

  1. Establish a clear relation between research questions and the problem or topic

  2. Base your research questions on your RRL or Review of Related Literature because existing published works help you get good background knowledge of the research problem and help you gauge the people’s current understanding or unfamiliarity of the topic, as well as the extent of their knowledge and interest in it

  3. Formulate research questions that can arouse your curiosity and surprise you with your discoveries or findings

  4. State your research questions in such a way that they include all dependent and independent variables referred to by the theories, principles, or concepts underlying your research work

  5. Let the set of research questions or sub-problems be preceded by one question expressing the main problem of the research

  6. Avoid asking research questions that are answerable with “yes” or “no” and the use of “how” questions only in quantitative research

  7. Be guided by the acronym SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound) in formulating the research questions. Applying SMART, you must deal with exact answers and observable things