Library and Information Science Commons^™

The Timing Of The Research Question: First-Year Writing Faculty And Instruction Librarians‘ Differing Perspectives, Jennifer E. Nutefall, Phyllis Mentzell Ryder

Staff publications, research, and presentations

Faculty and librarians agree on the qualities of a good research question. However, in an exploratory study, they differed on when students should develop their research question. While librarians stated that students should develop their question early, first-year writing faculty advocated for delaying the development of the research question. The timing of the research question is an important issue because it has implications for the structuring of research assignments and library instruction, as well as having an impact on the students who get differing messages.