Once you've chosen a topic, you'll probably need to narrow it down. For example, maybe you're interested in Ancient Egypt. That's a very broad topic, so you'll need to narrow your focus onto a particular subject within the topic, the pyramids, for instance. Techniques such as brainstorming or freewriting are often used to give you ideas.
At this point you need a research question. What is it about the pyramids that you want to research? Research questions generally begin with "How..." or "Why...". How were the pyramids built? Why were they built?
Other examples could be:
Why did a particular event happen the way it did, and not another way?
Why did Obama win the last election?
Why did the Soviet Union collapse?
How have race relations changed in the US since the 1960s?
In other words, good researchers (in social sciences) usually investigate developments in society which may seem somehow surprising (How question), or the causes of an event or trend (Why question).
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