Research Prompts
Generate Research Questions
Decompose a broad research topic into focused, answerable sub-questions.
Prompt
I am researching the following topic and need help breaking it into focused, actionable questions. **Research topic:** [RESEARCH_TOPIC] **Purpose of my research:** [PURPOSE] **What I already know:** [EXISTING_KNOWLEDGE] Please generate: 1. **5-7 core research sub-questions** — specific, focused questions that together would give a thorough understanding of the topic. Each question should be answerable (not purely philosophical) and scoped enough to investigate in a single source or inquiry. 2. **3 related debates or controversies** — active disagreements in the field or literature I should understand before forming my own position. 3. **5 key terms to look up** — domain-specific vocabulary I will need to understand the literature, with a one-sentence definition of each. 4. **Recommended source types for each core question** — for each of the 5-7 questions, suggest the best type of source to answer it (e.g., peer-reviewed study, government dataset, industry report, expert interview, primary source document).
How to Use
Describe your research topic as specifically as possible in [RESEARCH_TOPIC]. Set [PURPOSE] to clarify the end goal — academic paper, business decision, or personal learning — because this shapes which questions are most useful. Use [EXISTING_KNOWLEDGE] to prevent the AI from generating questions you can already answer, so you get the most value from the output.
Variables
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| [RESEARCH_TOPIC] | The broad topic or question you are investigating |
| [PURPOSE] | Why you are researching this — e.g., "academic paper", "business decision", "personal learning", "policy brief" |
| [EXISTING_KNOWLEDGE] | A brief note on what you already know, or write "none" if starting from scratch |
Tips
- Be as specific as possible in
[RESEARCH_TOPIC]— "the effects of sleep deprivation on working memory in adults" will produce better questions than "sleep and the brain." - After getting the output, pick 3-4 sub-questions to focus on and run the Literature Review prompt to start building your synthesis.