What are the boundaries of your subject, what will you explore further and what you will leave out?
In what period does your subject take place?
What are the key elements within your subject?
Where does the subject take place? What is the language of the publications that include your subject?
What does your lecturer think about this subject?
Progressing from subject to main question
Ask yourself the following questions:
How much time do I have for my assignment?
After all, looking up references and reading documents takes time and you must plan your time realistically.
How extensive should my paper be?
Can you limit yourself to recent literature or should you draw up an extensive literature list and go through older literature as well?
What exactly is the content of the assignment?
Do you only have to collect literature, or do you have to compare content as well?
The biggest problem with research is not that there is a lack of information. Usually you find so much information that you stray from what you wanted to explore. That is why you formulate a main question; you answer this question by means of your research. Try to formulate several sub-questions for this main question. Sub-questions are extra questions to help answer the most important question, the main question. In the next section you will learn how to define good main and sub-questions.