NATURE OF INQUIRY AND
RESEARCH
Getting Started: Deciding on a topic for Research
•Identify a topic of interest
•Focus the topic of interest
•Draft a work title
•Evaluate the research topic
Identify a topic of interest
• It may be something that you have read about,
or a friend had told you about;
• something you were curious of since you
entered senior high school;
• or something that is relevant to a particular
group in the society, or to the whole society, in
general.
• It could also be something based on your life
experiences.
Focus the topic of interest
• Describe the topic of interest.
• Provide a brief description of the topic.
• What is it about the topic that you are interested in?
• What aspect of the topic would you like to study, and
why?
• Are you deliberately omitting any particular aspect of
the topic from your study? Why?
• Try to describe your topic of interest in a brief but
succinct way, by completing the following sentences.
• My study is about
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_________________________________________
• In the study I would like to
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
__________________________________________
Draft a work title
• A working or tentative title is important at this early
stage to help focus the direction of your study.
• You can always change it as you progress with your
research.
• The language or the words that you will use to describe
your title must reflect the kind of research, either
qualitative or quantitative, that you will undertake.
• Make sure that your working or tentative title captures
or reflects that which you want to explain.
• According to Wilkinson (1991 cited in Criswell 1994, 3), “Be
brief and avoid wasting words.
• Eliminate unnecessary words such as “An Approach to…”
and “A study of…”
• Use a single title or a double title.
• An example of a double title: “ An Ethnography:
Understanding a Child’s Perception of War”
• Another useful tip is to “consider a title no longer than 12
words, eliminate most articles and prepositions, and make
sure it includes the focus or topic of the study”(Creswell
1994, 3)
• My Study’s tentative title is
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
________________________________________
Evaluate the research topic
• Is the topic researchable and feasible?
• Are the data available and accessible?
• Can the topic sustain your interest?
• Who will be the target audience of your research?