WRITING GUIDE

        VS        

Open questions require you to think harder and provide a longer, more detailed answer. 

When asked to research a topic, you may be given the main question/topic by your teacher or you may be asked to develop your own questions.

Your questions should not all be too narrow (closed) or too broad (open), but a mixture of both. You may need to think of related terms and other words (synonyms) that could be used to describe your topic.

• Too Narrow (closed): the topic is too specific and can be answered without sufficient information.

               Example: What is Soccer?  This only requires a short answer.

• Too broad (open): the topic is too big and requires too much information to answer. 

               Example: Where can I play soccer? There are too many answers to this question. You may need to add limiting keywords like ‘in Perth, WA’ 

• Different names for the same thing: try using synonyms of your keywords. 

                Example: To answer a question about tornadoes, you could also search for synonyms like ‘twister,’ ‘cyclone’ or ‘hurricane.’