The Role of AI in Strengthening Research Questions: Tips for Students

Learn how AI tools like Thesify are redefining academic writing by helping students refine research questions.

Whether you’re starting a new project or revisiting an existing draft, here are some tips to ensure your research question is as strong as possible:

1. Narrow the Scope

Broad questions lead to broad, unfocused papers. A strong research question should tackle a manageable issue. For example, instead of asking, “How does inequality affect society?” consider narrowing it to, “What role does neighborhood segregation in large U.S. cities play in perpetuating income inequality through access to public education and employment opportunities?” This level of specificity makes your research achievable and keeps your writing focused.

If you’re unsure how to refine your research question, it may help to revisit the fundamentals of academic writing. Our post Step-by-Step Academic Writing Guide: Breaking Down Every Task for a Successful Final Draft has you covered with key strategies to get yourself on track to align your research question with a clear and compelling thesis statement.

2. Check Feasibility

Your research question should align with the time, resources, and word count available to you. If it’s too ambitious, scale it back to something manageable within your constraints.

Do you find yourself regularly battling with your paper’s wordcount? We’ve got you covered with Quick Hacks to Increase or Decrease Word Count in Academic Writing.

3. Seek Feedback and Iterate

Don’t expect your first draft of a research question to be perfect. Refining your question is a key part of the process, and each revision brings you closer to clarity and focus.. Seeking feedback from peers, professors, or tools like thesify can help identify areas for improvement and ensure your question aligns with your research goals. For more insights on how tools like thesify can assist in refining your question, check out How to Use thesify to Get Feedback on Your Writing Assignment.

4. Leverage AI for Support

Features like thesify’s Research Question Dashboard are designed to complement your critical thinking by providing targeted suggestions to refine your ideas while keeping you in control of your work. You can also run your draft through thesify to see if Theo can automatically extract your research question without additional input. If Theo is able to identify your research question, it means your draft is clear and that your question is well-integrated into your writing.