Associate Level Material
Appendix D

Research Plan
As part of your research plan, you must first draft a research question for your research paper that will guide the rest of your writing. A research question, which is more specific and focused than a general topic, is the question that your research paper will be answering. For example, if your general area of interest is social security, a possible research question might ask “How can low-income families save more money if the United States had a reformed social security plan that includes personal retirement accounts?”
As you develop a research question, keep in mind that you will need to research sources to support your topic. Do not pick a one-sided question that will limit your research. Instead, develop a research question that lends itself to further exploration and debate—a question for which you genuinely want to know the answer. Try to pick a research question that is neither too broad, which covers too much, or too narrow, which covers too little. It should be broad enough to be discussed in a short research paper.
|What is your general topic or area of interest? | |
| |Television & Children |
| | |
|What is it about your general topic of interest that interests |I find it interesting that parent’s throw their children in front|
|you? |of a Television for their own peace & quiet. I believe too much |
| |Television in children leads to the starting of obesity. |
|What questions do you have about the topic that you would like to|How much is too much TV for a child? |
|investigate? List them. |What is appropriate for your child to watch? |
| | |
|Would any of the questions you listed about the topic make a good|How much is too much TV for a child? |
|subject for a research paper? Pick or adapt one question and make| |
|it into a research question. | |
|Why do you think this research question will be appropriate for a|I think this is a good question because there are parents out |
|research paper? |there that use TV to their advantage or some out there that just |
| |don’t think about what too much TV could cause. |
|How is your research question significant or relevant to a wider | |
|community? |TV is so popular now days, you will find more than one in the |
| |average house hold. |
| | |
|What background information provides the preliminary grounds for |I know children that spend all day inside watching TV on their |
|your research? |summer break and their parents don’t say nothing, when I was a |
|