Research – answering questions. To start research, need at least one question.
Large project may have more than one question.
Too many questions – unable to answer them all, research will lack focus.
Generally, 3-5 related questions.
Should be refined to fairly basic terms:
- Why does this happen?
- How does that work?
- What is needed to make this work?
Example
Tim Berners-Lee – lots of related research, all separate documents.
Experience: Hypertext (“Enquire”), networking, remote pricedure calls over TCP/IP.
Research question: “Is it possible to implement some way of linking documents together [wherever they are physically located] using hypertext so that you can jump from one paper to another?”.
Problem solved when bringing two technologies together in novel way.