Narrow a History question without deciding its answer
A research question should tell a reader what historical problem you intend to answer.
Turn a theme into an inquiry
A research question should tell a reader what historical problem you intend to answer. Start with your theme, then identify a relationship or judgment: cause, consequence, change, continuity or significance. Add the people, place and period necessary to bound it. Avoid putting your preferred answer into the wording. A question that assumes a policy failed may prevent you from recognizing evidence of partial success or variation across groups.
Define the contested words
Underline terms such as effective, important or decisive. Explain how you would judge them in the chosen context. Different measures may yield different answers, so choose measures that fit the historical problem and accessible evidence. For effectiveness, you might compare an official aim with documented outcomes. This definition should guide investigation without imposing a modern standard that historical actors could not reasonably have shared or understood.
Work through a relief-policy question
Suppose your first question is whether relief programmes helped people during an economic crisis. Narrow it to a named programme, locality, period and outcome, such as access to employment. Then check whether the surviving evidence distinguishes access from long-term economic recovery. If it only documents applications and short placements, a claim about broad recovery would exceed the record. Revise the outcome or seek appropriate additional evidence rather than stretching the existing sources.
Test the question against the evidence
Make a table linking parts of the question to sources. If no source addresses a central term, your scope needs attention. Write a provisional answer and the strongest challenge to it, then see whether both can be examined historically. The provisional answer is a working hypothesis, not a conclusion to protect. A question is more useful when new evidence can change your judgment and when you can explain how that change would happen.
Freeze a workable version for drafting
After teacher review, set a version you can draft around. Keep a brief change log if further revisions become necessary. Every change should have a reason, such as unavailable sources or a clearer definition of the outcome. Recheck the introduction, argument and conclusion whenever wording changes. A precise final question is valuable only if the investigation actually answers it; polishing the question alone cannot compensate for an argument that follows a different inquiry.
Check the evidence trail before you finish
Choose one important sentence from your response and trace it back to the source or class material that supports it. Check whether you have stated an observation, inferred a cause or adopted another historian's interpretation. Those claims need different kinds of justification. Record precise references in research notes and separate quotations from your own paraphrases. Then ask what evidence could weaken the sentence and whether your answer acknowledges that possibility. This short audit improves the relationship between evidence and argument without requiring you to add more material simply for length. When accounts disagree, check whether they refer to the same period, population and outcome before deciding that one contradicts the other. This comparison can reveal a difference in scope that a simple reliability judgment would miss.
Your next-step checklist
Checklist choices stay in this browser.
Official references
This is an original practical guide from IBvia. The examples are illustrative; your subject guide, assessment year and school instructions determine the requirements.
Keep working on your next step
Choose evidence that can answer your Business IA question
Select supporting documents for a real organizational issue and use their strengths and gaps in your analysis.
Read the guide ↗
Plan an Economics IA commentary around one event
Choose an article, connect its event to economic theory and develop evaluation that follows the evidence.
Read the guide ↗