Research Question Loop

A sharpen → score → revise loop for the framing stage of research. The artifact is a small set of research questions; the feedback signal is how many clear the bar — each scored 0-5 on five fixed axes (Specific, Answerable, Novel, Feasible, Significant). You start from a vague topic, draft candidates, score each against the rubric (with a light novelty check against the literature), and rewrite the weakest axis of the promising ones until enough are strong.

A good research question is the hard part of research: too broad and it cannot be answered; too narrow and it does not matter; already settled and there is no point. The goal is a few excellent questions, not many mediocre ones — this loop drives toward the narrow band that is answerable, novel, and worth answering.

Scope & limitations

This loop produces and refines questions, grounded by a light novelty check (a few searches), not a full survey — for an exhaustive map use the literature-survey loop, and to turn a question into testable predictions use the hypothesis-generation loop. The novelty check needs web or literature access; without it (novelty_check: none), novelty is the loop's best judgment and must be labeled unverified.