Sample Research Questions

Note: In practice, research questions are often partly descriptive and partly explanatory. Sometimes they are partly hypothetical.

Bear in mind that before completing your paper or thesis, you need to turn your research question into a clear thesis statement (see 3.2, 2. Research Question / Thesis Statement).

Descriptive (providing an overview):

• ‘What were the motives and methods of the editors-in-chief of the 19th century Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden [Biographical Dictionary of the Netherlands]?’
• ‘How did Dutch news weeklies and pamphlets report on women’s suffrage between 1860 and 1920?’
• ‘How did the Republic respond to Jonathan Swift’s satirical literature?’

Explanatory (explaining some phenomenon):

• What were the causes/consequences of <an event>?
• How did <a person> influence <an event>?
• ‘What caused the Irish Potato Famine?’
• ‘Why was Louis Napoleon King of Holland for only four years?’
• ‘How did Gilles Schotel, an editor-in-chief of Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden [Biographical Dictionary of the Netherlands], contribute to the professionalization of Dutch historiography in the late 19th century?’
• ‘How did Dutch philologists Nicolaas Heinsius and Isaac Vossius contribute to the realization of the scientific ideal formulated by Queen Christina of Sweden?’

Hypothetical (testing whether a theory is valid)

• ‘Is the marriage of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt to Maria van Utrecht (1575) an example of marriage as ‘a tool to manage social capital’ as formulated by Luuc Kooijmans in his 1997 Dutch-language publication Vriendschap en de kunst van het overleven [Friendship and the Art of Survival]?’

Comparative (comparing and contrasting nations, periods, phenomena)

• ‘What similarities, if any, exist between the discomfort about social morality in bourgeois circles as voiced in the late 19th century editions of Dutch literary magazine De Gids and the late 20th century debate about social cohesion in the Netherlands?’

Historiographical (tracking how a historic event has been portrayed and assessed over time)

• ‘How did Dutch Protestants in the 18th and 19th centuries view the story of the Gorcum martyrs?’
• ‘How has the attitude of the Dutch during the Second World War been portrayed and assessed over the past 50 years?’

Statistical (looking for a correlation between historical phenomena)

• ‘What was the ratio of women to men working in the 17th century book trade in the Netherlands and Britain and what does this imply about the position of women in the book trade in those two countries at that time?’

NOTE: If you intend to use a statistical research question, you need to be well versed in statistics. You need to know exactly what research method is required and which criteria you are going to apply. It is unethical to change these criteria over the course of your research. If the method you opted for does not work, the only right course of action is to halt the research, find a new method and rephrase your research question. To narrow the chances of such a setback, it is best to carry out some preliminary research using a limited yet representative part of the material. This can help you phrase an appropriate research question.

Avoid research questions like these:

• What would have happened if ….. ? (you will never find out)
• Who was …..? (bound to become a biography devoid of focus or analysis)
• What are we to think of …? (an attempt to describe a consensus that will never be reached; a very imprecise question too)