A formal research question is what guides and focuses your reserach. This question should be detailed enough to keep the reseracher on task, but should not lock the researcher into a single “correct” answer. The Writing Center at George Mason University has some great guidelines that all research questions should follow: 

• clear: it specific enough that the audience can understand the purpose of the research with needing more context
• focused: it can be answered thoroughly within the length requirements of the project
• concise: it is stated in the fewest possible words
• complex: it is not answerable with a simple “yes” or “no;” requires information to be synthesized into an original idea
• arguable: answers/conclusions are open-ended, not inarguable facts