Effective research begins with transforming a broad topic into focused, answerable questions that guide your entire research process. This course requires research of the Seminar speakers' publications as well as presentations on chemical characterization tools, focusing on the working principle, what it is used for, data collection and data analysis, and its application in various research.
(This step may be iterative as you do initial searching to answer the question, you may need to revisit the question to align with the information you are discovering.)
How is mass spectrometry used in a chemistry lab?
[too broad - requires more focus - move on to next step.]
You want your question to be focused enough to be interesting, yet answerable in the context in which you are performing the research. Refer back to your background search to help refine your question.
Asking yourself the following questions about your topic is a helpful way of focusing on a question.
Continuing with the example topic:
What industry?
What Specific Technique?
With what specific goal?
In what specific context?
When? - last 5 years (useful when limiting search results).
MORE FOCUSED RESEARCH QUESTION:
What analytical techniques using mass spectrometry are used to detect impurities in drug substances?
This is getting much closer to a workable research question. It determines a specific field (pharmaceuticals), a clear purpose (detecting impurities), and a clear technique class (mass spectrometry).
A FOCUSED AND ACTIONABLE RESEARCH QUESTION:
What is the optimal method using plasma mass spectrometry for detecting trace impurities of ibuprofen, during quality control?
This question is even stronger as it defines a specific technique (plasma mass spectrometry), a specific goal (detecting trace impurities), a specific sample type (ibuprofen), and its context (quality control).
However, you will not know if this question is answerable until you start searching for information. This research process is iterative, you may need to re-evaluate your question if you are struggling to find relevant information on it.