From Curiosity to a Research Question

Research begins when curiosity is disciplined into a question.

A useful question identifies what remains unresolved without smuggling in the desired answer. It should be specific enough to guide evidence collection, yet open enough to permit correction of the assumptions that produced it.

In QLens, a question is a first-class object because questions have history. They can be refined, divided, related, answered provisionally, reopened, or superseded. The original wording may reveal assumptions that later research exposes.

A question object should therefore preserve:

• the question itself;
• its context and scope;
• its present status;
• relationships to observations, evidence, and other questions;
• any revision that materially changes what is being asked.