Problem Statements: Everyone knows a paper needs a “thesis statement.” Perhaps the biggest difference between high-school writing and college-level writing is the importance of a good “problem statement.”

Avoid Free-Floating Intelligence: Don’t allow your argument to be free-floating intelligence. A good problem statement shows why your argument matters.

Why the Paper Needs to Be Written: A problem statement maps out a challenging, contested, or difficult-to-understand issue that deserves to be further considered.

Developing and Presenting: As with evidence and analysis, questions/problems occur twice during the writing process: first during the phase of interpretation when developing your ideas, and second in the paper itself when presenting your argument.

Developing Questions/Problems

Read, Interpret, Ask: To develop a question/problem, you’ll need to do some reading and annotating of a text first, even some interpreting. That is, an analytical question is not something you ask before interpreting a text but after interpreting it. An analytical question is one that needs more interpretation beyond the initial pass.

A Question You Can't Answer: Sometimes we read a text, have an idea, and then write a paper about it. Don’t do that. Instead, ask a question that you currently can’t answer. If you genuinely can’t answer it, it’s a question worthy of a paper.

A good analytical question:

• Speaks to a certifiable dilemma or problem in the text: The question focuses on a real confusion, ambiguity, or grey area of the text, an aspect about which readers will conceivably have different reactions, opinions, or interpretations.
• Is answerable, given the available evidence, but perhaps answerable in different ways by different people.
• Yields an answer that is not obvious: In a question such as “How many people does Hamlet kill by the play’s end?” there’s nothing to explore: it’s too specific and can be answered too easily.
• Suggests an answer complex enough to require a whole essay’s worth of argument: If the question is too uninteresting or vague, it won’t suggest a sustainable line of argument (e.g., “Why does Claudius send Hamlet to England?”). The question should elicit analysis and argument rather than summary or description.

Here are some additional tips about analytical questions to keep in mind:

• How and why questions require more analysis than who/what/when/where questions.
• Good analytical questions can highlight patterns/connections or contradictions/dilemmas/problems/disconnections.
• Good analytical questions should also suggest the implications or consequences of an analysis.

The Three Kinds of Incongruity: Problems and questions tend to follow from one of three kinds of incongruity. These discrepancies present problems and questions that require arguments in order to explain why the author(s) composed the text in the way that he or she or they did instead of in some other way:

• A problem of assumption occurs when there is an incongruity between our expectations for a text and our experience with it, i.e. when a text isother than we thought it would be. To articulate a problem of assumption, one must explain why he or she would/did expect a text to function in a given way, and how the text does not ultimately function in that way.
• A problem of perception occurs when there is an incongruity between a text’s semblance and essence, i.e. when a text seemsother than it is. To articulate a problem of perception, one must explain how a text functions on first blush, and how the text does not ultimately function in that way.
• A problem of morality occurs when there is an incongruity between the ideal text and the actual text, i.e. when a text ought to be other than itis. To articulate a problem of morality, one must explain why he or she would like a text to function in a given way, and how the text does not ultimately function in that way.

Avoiding Awkward Problem Statements: Note that these three kinds of incongruity – assumption, perception, and morality – should be thought of as conceptual tools, not language to be used in a paper. It would be extremely awkward for a paper to say, “There is a problem of assumption in Milton’s Paradise Lost because I did not expect God to act like a defensive know-it-all.” As always, show don’t tell: show how a given incongruity exists without awkwardly naming the kind of incongruity it is in the way that I have awkwardly named them here.

Some other strategies and approaches that you might consider for identifying problems and asking questions include:

• A New Perspective: Your concerns, experiences, identity, specialized knowledge, or point of view open up an insight about a text that isn’t obvious.
• A New Phenomenon: Some new historical event or perspective has emerged that allows us to reread and rethink an older text.

Problem Statements in Essays vs. Research Projects: The two general kinds of papers – essays and research papers (the difference being a research paper considers and cites scholarship) – require two different kinds of “problem statements.”

Problem Statements in Essays: In an essay that does not cite scholarship:

• a writer can establish a problem by identifying and unpacking an aspect of a text that needs interpretation.
• you cannot say something like, “Most critics believe …” which makes a claim to have read all of the scholarship on an issue when in fact you haven’t (instead, try, “Some might think …” or describe what an “obvious” or “surface” reading looks like).
• make sure your analytical question can be answered by the text(s) you’re considering, rather than by generalizations or by copious external research. A question such as “Does the Danish court in Hamlet reflect Elizabethan courts in Shakespeare’s time?” is fascinating, but its scope isn’t suitable for a single-source close reading of Hamlet.

Problem Statements in Research Projects: In a research project,

• questions/problems can be critical as well as textual.
• For the literature review, the writer must research, narrate, and cite the various interpretations that have previously been published, and then justify the need for additional interpretation.
• See the Aphorisms on Literature Reviews.

Competing Interpretations (Hypothetical vs. Actual): Perhaps there are multiple interpretations that are mutually compelling yet mutually exclusive. A problem statement might articulate how two or more intelligent people could (if writing an essay) or have (if writing a research paper) come to different conclusions about the same text.

Two Sources of Questions/Problems: Broadly speaking, therefore, problems can come from two realms: (1) from a text itself and (2) from the scholarship related to a text. In other words, a problem that demands an investigation can grow out of the fact that (1) there is some question, confusion, ambiguity, contradiction, etc. that is evident if you pay close attention to the details of a text; or (2) there is some gap, misconception, or undeveloped line of thought in a certain academic conversation.

Writing an Analytical Question: Practically speaking, your analytical question can be articulated in a three-part structure: (1) make a reference, (2) make a claim, and (3) ask a question. That is, (1) through quotation, paraphrase, and/or summary, provide some evidence from the text you’re looking at; (2) analyze that evidence; and (3) open up a field of inquiry by discussing the problems and questions that emerge from your analysis of that evidence.

Presenting Questions/Problems

Question/Problem Statement: Your question or problem statement justifies the need for an investigation, and thus for an argument. Your question/problem ought to convince your reader (who is a busy person whose time cannot be wasted) to continue into your argument instead of ignoring it as an inconsequential waste of time.

Answer a Question You Weren't Asking: One thing that can happen at the end of the writing process is that you realize you have the answer to a question that you didn’t know you were asking. A paper on Shakespeare’s Hamlet that began with the problem that Horatio isn’t a very good friend to Hamlet could end up with an argument that answers the question, “How did Shakespeare see himself as an artist?” When something like this happens, make sure that the question or problem posed in your actual paper is the one that your thesis resolves rather than the one that inaugurated your investigation. (That initial question, however, will still probably have a place somewhere in your paper, maybe near the beginning of the body of the essay.)

Three Types of Question/Problem: So, for the purposes of presentation in a paper, it may be helpful to sub-divide the category of question/problem into three types.

• Question/Problem₁: The issue in the text that calls for interpretation. What got you thinking about your topic in the first place.
• Question/Problem2: The shortcoming in previous scholarship on an issue that your argument resolves.
• Question/Problem3: The question/problem you now have an answer to. What your argument resolves, even if it’s not the question you set out to answer. Maybe an issue outside your narrowly defined “text” illuminated by your interpretation. A bigger question related to the discipline/field in which you're writing. It's closely related to your stakes and implications. You may not have been asking this question, but you can now answer it.

Question/Problem₁ and Question/Problem₃ will appear in all kinds of essays. Question/Problem₂ will only appear in research papers involving peer-reviewed scholarly sources.

Opening a Field of Inquiry: In my essays, I sometimes like to “open up a field of inquiry” by posing a wall of questions that build up from my analyses to my problem statement and then to my statement of “what’s at stake” in my paper, showing how my problem has implications for a field of academic inquiry that’s bigger than my specific text. From here, I might proceed to specify exactly what I’m going to be looking at in the paper that follows (a “text statement”), to discuss my approach to the text (a “method statement”), to establish the terms needed to unpack my text, and then offer my interpretation (a “thesis statement”).

Structuring a Question/Problem Statement: You’ll need to think about the best way to structure your presentation of these varieties of Questions/Problems alongside other elements of academic argument.

Structure for Starting with Question/Problem₁: Let’s say you’re writing a single-source analysis. If you start the paper with Question/Problem₁, you’ll probably want to end the introduction with Question/Problem₂. The logic here is that you open a question about the text - something that needs interpretation - that is then answered by the thesis statement; then, after the thesis, you push things to the next level by identifying the pay-off of your argument beyond that question. So the structure of the introduction might look like this:

Para 1

• Evidence (from text)
• Analysis (of that evidence from text)
• Question/Problem₁ (about the issue in the text that needs interpretation)

Para 2

• Text Statement
• Terms
• Thesis Statement (delivering the resolution to the issue identified in Question/Problem₁ above, with implications related to the issue identified in Question/Problem₃ below)
• Stakes (i.e., Question/Problem₃)

Structure for Including Question/Problem₂: If you're writing a research paper, you'll want to cite, review, and critique previous scholarship on your topic or a related field. To do so, follow the above outline, but include a second problem statement (related to the criticism) in between the first problem statement and the thesis. 

Para 1

• Evidence (from text)
• Analysis (of that evidence from text)
• Question/Problem1 (about the issue in the text that needs interpretation)

Para 2

• Text Statement
• Critical Citations (other scholars who have interpreted the same thing you're interpreting)
• Analysis (of that previous scholarship)
• Question/Problem2 (about the issue in the text that needs interpretation)

Para 3

• Terms
• Thesis Statement (delivering the resolution to the issue identified in Question/Problem1 above, with implications related to the issue identified in Question/Problem₃ below)
• Stakes (i.e., Question/Problem₃)

Structure for Starting with Question/Problem₃: But sometimes it’s more effective to start with what’s at stake. If you start by mapping out Question/Problem₃, you’ll probably want to put Question/Problem₁at the start of the body of the essay. The logic here is that the big-picture problem identified at the start of the paper, which exists outside the narrowly defined scope of your text, can be elucidated by turning to your text; after explaining that, give your thesis, which is your actual substantive claim about your text. So the structure of this paper might start out like this:

Para 1

• Evidence (related to stakes)
• Analysis (of that evidence related to stakes)
• Question/Problem₃ (posing the question that your implications will provide an answer to)

Para 2

• Method Statement (identifying how Question/Problem₃ can be responded to by turning to your text)
• Text Statement
• Terms
• Thesis Statement (making a claim about your text, with implications related to the issue identified in Question/Problem₃ above; the idea was arrived at through interpretation of Question/Problem₁, but that question/problem statement is held back and presented below)

Para 3 (Start of Body of the Essay)

• Evidence (from text)
• Analysis (of that evidence from text)
• Question/Problem₁ (about the issue in the text that needs interpretation)