Define the Research Topic and Determine Information Needs

State Your Topic as a Question

The formulation of research questions and hypotheses helps to clarify a topic. For example, if your topic is about the handheld device industry, you could ask the following questions:

• Who are the major players in the industry?
• What is the market share? Has it changed in the past three years?
• What do industry sales indicate for the market?
• What were the total sales for this industry during the past year? past five years?
• Describe Nokia's marketing strategy?
• How much does Motorola spend on advertising?
• Why did the PDA market shift?
• Who are the target markets?
• How segmented is the industry?