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Being clear about the purpose of your research
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In moving from topic area to formulating a research question, it is important to be mindful of the purpose of the research you wish to undertake. Davies (2010) distin- guishes between:
· policy-related research – the purpose of which is to aid policy formulation or revision/assessment
· intervention-based research – the purpose of which is to aid understanding of the effectiveness of specific interventions against stated outcomes
· theory-based research – the purpose of which is to benefit understanding and explanations regarding human agency, social institutions and social structures
· critical research – the purpose of which is to get behind the mere appearance of things to offer an outsider view of human agency, social institutions and social structures.
Whilst some of the above may not be directly relevant to doing criminological dis- sertation research, I introduce you to them here in order to help raise some of the key questions that you should be thinking about at this stage, namely:
· What is it that you actually want to study and why?
· What is the purpose of your research?
· What do you want to achieve from it?
· How will it differ from that which has already been written?
· What are the gaps in our existing knowledge to which it might contribute?
· What insights do you hope to gain from completing the dissertation?
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Is it likely to be of interest to others?
In working through these questions, think about the distinctions between inductive and deductive approaches to doing criminological research. The former is the process of moving from observation to theory building; the latter involves theory testing. Similarly, be careful to differentiate between descriptive and explanatory type ques- tions. The former relates to wanting to describe a particular phenomenon; the latter concerns wanting to explain (see Davies and Francis in Chapter 1).
There is no easy way of defining and specifying your research question and the process involves trial and error. Interrogating your initial topic area involves teasing out the criminological problem you wish to address, the perspective from which you want to approach it, the questions that you wish to answer as part of doing the research, and the purpose of doing the research.
Formulating the research question can be messy and sometimes mentally painful. You may wish to capture your thoughts in a mind map – in which you can visualize both the overall topic area and the fine detail, including the possible focus and ques- tions. There are some good apps and software that can help you to do this digitally
with ease, quickly and effectively such as FreeMind and Freeplane, both of which are open-source cross-platform. This can be a great help when you are planning the structure of your dissertation. Box 2. 4 offers summary guidance on moving from a topic area to a research question.
BOX 2. 4 FROM CHOOSING A TOPIC TO FORMULATING A RESEARCH QUESTION
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1. Go large – think of all the possible research questions about the topic and test the questions against what you know and what the discipline knows.
¡ Think about broad themes and questions.
¡ Be bold and ambitious. Explore who else has studied the topic you are interested in.
2. Narrow the list – iterative process, thematically cluster, exclude subquestions or peripheral ones, through critical reflexivity.
¡ Think of different ‘stakeholders’, types of people, structural features – gender etc., specific area of focus.
¡ Focus in on the key parameters of what it is you wish to study.
3. Refine the list – attention to wording, the assumptions that underpin them.
¡ 
Think about research objectives; terms, assumptions, conceptualization.
¡ Be rigorous and practical about what can be studied in the time frame.
4. Reflect on the question(s) – at all stages of the research process.
¡ Think about your literature review and data collection methods.
¡ Ensure that what you are proposing is manageable, achieveable and feasible.
Source: Adapted from Green (2008)
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