6 Questions

University students are encouraged to be curious and ask questions. Asking and answering questions is at the heart of high-quality thinking. Questions naturally arise from the desire to know and learn about things. Questions may be the starting point for whole areas of study. For example, 'Why does an apple fall to the ground?' or 'Why did the Roman Empire fall?' are important questions leading to areas of study in science and history. Formulating questions can be a valuable way of structuring thinking and finding a way through learning resources. Questions provide ways to clarify issues, focus attention and explore assumptions.

You can use questions to develop your skills at the different levels of thinking described in Section 3. Table 1 contains examples of questions for each level.

So, for example, if you were considering the Second World War, you might ask the following questions.

• Knowledge - What was the Second World War? When was it? Where was it? Who started it?

• Analysis - Why did it happen?

• Synthesis - How did the different decisions and events combine to produce this historical event?

• Evaluation - How reasonable was the original decision to declare war? Was the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki an appropriate strategy for ending conflict?

One of the most useful of these questions is 'Why?'. Repeatedly asking why can be helpful in probing an issue and getting to the root of a problem. As an example, let us consider the issue of changes in weather patterns that have been occurring in recent years.

• Why are we experiencing changes in weather patterns? Because of global warming (the average Earth temperature is rising).

• Why is global warming happening? Because the amount of carbon dioxide (the main 'greenhouse gas') in the Earth's atmosphere is increasing and increasing the 'greenhouse effect' (i.e. heat is trapped by the atmosphere in the same way that heat in a greenhouse is trapped by the glass).

• Why is the amount of carbon dioxide increasing? Because of human activity such as burning fossil fuels, and also the destruction of rainforest areas.

• Why is this human activity increasing? Because of social, political and population factors. There is a huge demand for energy from fossil fuels; deforestation is driven by the demand for hardwoods, mined ores, and beef (for beefburgers) in developed economies, along with slash-and-burn clearance activities by local farmers who have little other economic choice.

And so on …

Questions can be particularly useful as a tool to tackle writing tasks like essays. You can set up a series of questions then address them in your writing.