The Art of Asking Good Questions

Guest contribution: Bruce Janz on the Art of Asking Questions

Introduction

Bruce Janz is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at UCF, graduate faculty in the Texts & Technology Ph.D. program, and co-director of the Center for Humanities and Digital Research.

We asked Dr. Janz to contribute to this course because he has some interesting thoughts on the topic of questions and questioning in philosophy but also beyond that, drawing on other disciplines. This is very much in line with our thoughts in this chapter where we present the ability to ask good questions as an important but vastly underappreciated research skill, even an artform.

Dr. Janz’s approach is to take students through a critique of their provisional questions and to revise those until they come to something that they can really get behind.

“I encourage students to trust their guts,” he says, “because sometimes the realization that a question is present comes before its clear articulation. I get them to look for the “hmm, that’s weird” moments in data or texts or whatever they are working with – that’s a site for questions. All this gets them to be a philosopher rather than study philosophy, and the same would be true of other disciplines as well.”

Here are some more of Dr. Janz’s thoughts about developing good questions, which is the focus of this chapter:

On “how” questions: People often use “how” questions as research questions (how does something happen/come to be/end up like this), and these assume that something is the case. They ask for an account of something. You might have to take a step back and demonstrate that the thing you say is happening is really happening.

“That’s weird” moments: I sometimes talk about “that’s weird” moments in looking at the data or phenomena. Moments like that are more like “why” questions. They are an attempt to give an account of something that’s not adding up, that is a certain way but it’s not clear why. That suggests that there are forces at work that need to be brought into the open. So, are there any “that’s weird” moments? Something you would expect to be one way but it’s a different way? I’m not saying that if there are no such moments there’s nothing to explain, but it’s easier if you see something like that.

Questions imply methods or disciplinary frameworks: You could, for instance, ask a question in such a way that it suggests that you are looking for a cause for some phenomenon, in which case you would have to use methods that could yield causes. It’s worth being aware of which methods or disciplines you are implicitly appealing to by asking a question. A method is a way of answering a question (among other things).

What’s the ontology of your question? In other words, what are you assuming exists in the world of your question, and how do things relate to each other? Does your question assume, for example, that individuals are the atoms of the world and any answer must refer back to what individuals do?

Questions that take risks: That is, the risk that your answer could be wrong. So it’s always worth asking about any question whether someone could disagree with you and still be right. If you are arguing for using a particular lens to understand something, could someone come along with a different lens and also give a coherent analysis? And if so, are these two lenses essentially the same thing? Is one better than the other in the end? Are these two explaining different aspects of a phenomenon? How exactly do different answers relate to each other? Also, what kind of evidence could there be that might convince you or someone else that your account is wrong? Is there anything? And if not, have you taken any risk in your question?

Small changes in wording: Questions might take on a different complexion with a very small change in wording. That’s why it is worth going over your question many times, with different wordings, to see whether something new comes up. Defining words in a question, even (maybe especially) the seemingly easy ones, can help you to think about the space your question operates in or opens up.

More “that’s weird” moments: Questions might have as their goal to fit something into an existing way of understanding the world (the “that’s weird” moment might get resolved so that it does in fact line up with other existing knowledge). On the other hand, a question might open up a whole new way of thinking (the “that’s weird” moment might lead us to realize that our accounts of the world aren’t adequate). It’s worth knowing what you think your question (or its answer) is doing or leading to.

Unspoken parts of questions: Questions have unspoken parts. Sometimes those are assumptions, maybe ones that seem obvious and don’t need defense (always be wary of those – they might in fact need attention). There might be an assumption that something causes something else to happen – that’s an assumption that might need its own support. Sometimes the unspoken parts are about the audience, or they are about who is asking the question and from what social, cultural, racial, gendered, epistemological, religious, or other position. Sometimes there’s an assumption about shared knowledge between the writer and the audience, or shared understanding of social conventions, or something like that. It’s worth bringing out into the open as many of the unspoken parts as possible, because it might affect the kind of question you can or should ask.

What happens when you answer a question? Does it just disappear like a checked box in a to-do list? Or does it live on, and if so, why? Is it because the world keeps changing and so the question remains a live one?

What does your question tell you about your own view of the world? How do you know when you’ve asked the wrong question, and how do you change your mind on your question?

How do questions relate to beliefs or worldviews? Do beliefs or worldviews govern the kinds of questions you think are legitimate? What would it be like to ask questions from outside of that space – would you just have to entirely change the ontology of your world for the question to make sense at all?

Where do new questions come from? Sometimes from reading more. But sometimes from living, from doing things. Sometimes from talking to people. Sometimes you have to put yourself in an uncomfortable or unfamiliar space. And sometimes, questions cross-pollinate from other areas, morphing from a familiar space to a new one.

Now let’s look at how to apply these ideas to the development and evaluation of your research question.