1.
The
topic must be interesting for the researcher to pursue or dedicate himself or
herself to
2.
Clearly
pass at least one or all of the following criteria:
1.1.
with
clear contribution to theory (i.e., must address a specific gap in current
knowledge or theory)
1.2.
useful
to a significant mass of people and not merely to a specific group with
“narrow” interests
3.
Topic
must be researchable: data can be gathered and processed in a way that can give
conclusive as opposed to ambivalent answers to a research inquiry or inquiries
4.
Consistent
with or within the scope of the researcher’s training, discipline, or area of
specialization
5.
Feasible
to undertake given the skills, resources, and time constraints available to the
researcher
6.
Research
topic requires an expenditure of a significant amount of time and resources
1.
Must
preferably be expressed as a short paragraph of questions:
1.1.
Begin
the paragraph of questions with a key question that serves as the main research
problem
1.2.
Follow-up
the key questions with several questions that serve to define the scope as well
as limit of the research
2.
Write
the research problem in a way that links the research with an academic
discipline or disciplines (for interdisciplinary or multi-disciplinal research
interests)
3.
Formulate
the research problem questions in a way that uses key concepts from the
discipline relevant to the research
4.
Formulate
the research problem questions in a way that they are answerable with data,
processed data, data processed as statistics, or statistics