Understanding the Assignment: The Question

Can you turn the statement into a question?

Instructors often use statements as essay titles. Keep the required title when you submit, of course, but as you plan your approach to the essay, it often helps to reformat the statement as a question for yourself. Returning to our now familiar example…

'Critically evaluate whether the Magna Carta is still relevant today.'

This could be posed in question form as the following:

'Is the Magna Carta still relevant today?'

This slight change gives you something more tangible to focus on since, by nature, questions spark the mind to begin contemplating answers. You can also play with more specific variations of the questions you form to get your ideas flowing:

'Is the Magna Carta still relevant today, and if so, how?'

'Which tenets of the Magna Carta are still relevant today? How can the relevance of those tenets be proven?'

'What factors or qualities make the Magna Carta less relevant today?'

As you can see, framing and reframing such questions in new ways lays the groundwork for you to truly dig in and analyse the situation as a writer.

 – Check out our Developing Research Questions guide for further guidance on developing effective questions.

What if it's already a question?

If the assignment prompt is already in question form, you can still build it out with relevant questions to help you think through your writing strategy and potential content. For example, let's say this is the essay question:

'How do a nurse's communication practices influence trust when treating gender-diverse patients?'

Place this main question at the top of your page, then develop a bulleted list of further sub-questions:

'How do a nurse's communication practices influence trust when treating gender-diverse patients?'

• 'What behaviours and skills do a nurse's communication practices entail?'
  • 'What kinds of literature could I use to unpack and define this?'
• 'How is patient trust defined and understood in medical contexts?'
  • 'And why is trust imperative?'
  • 'What risks exist when trust is absent?'
• 'What are the positive/beneficial modes of influence?'
  • 'Conversely, how might negative/damaging influence arise?'
• 'How is gender-diverse defined and understood?'
  • 'Do LGBTQ+ advocacy groups and the medical literature define this differently?'
  • 'What could make communication practices more inclusive of gender-diverse patients?'

Note that each grouping of questions expands on keywords from the original question. By interrogating the question itself with further questions, you can really get the ball rolling! This will help you develop an initial sense of the research you need to conduct and points that might be relevant to make.

If you enjoy a more visual approach, try putting the main question at the centre of a mind map, then adding branches for sub-questions that help you dig in (as shown below). You can draw it out manually or digitally.

Top tip: To create a digital mind map, you can use Whiteboard (which is included in Southampton students' free Microsoft 365 subscriptions). If you use Apple products, try the Freeform app included on your device.