Ideas for presenting the research question?

Question

I know this is a very open question, however I am looking for some impressions as I am totally unsure in what style I can do this.

I am writing my bachelor thesis right now and I want to present my final research question inside my introduction. I was thinking about an environment which is a bit separated from the rest and looks 'good'.

I was trying something like this:

\framebox[\textwidth]{
\begin{tabular}{@{}ll@{}}
\textbf{Researchquestion 1} & How is this done?\\
\textbf{Researchquestion 2} & What is done?\\
\end{tabular}
} 

However maybe there are some better ways for doing this?

Answer 1

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{enumitem}

\newlist{questions}{enumerate}{2}
\setlist[questions,1]{label=RQ\arabic*.,ref=RQ\arabic*}
\setlist[questions,2]{label=(\alph*),ref=\thequestionsi(\alph*)}

\begin{document}
    \begin{questions}
        \item This is a research question.
        \item This is another research question.
        \item This is a research question with a label.\label{itm:qwithlabel}
    \end{questions}

    \noindent We are very interested in answering~\ref{itm:qwithlabel}.
\end{document}

Answer 2

I've seen many kinds of things ranging from the \begin{description}...\end{description} to simple \textbf{...} or \emph{} in papers. You rarely see the box in papers, but papers are not theses. You could also give it a dedicated paragraph \paragraph{Research Question X}. Right now, I personally prefer the use of \begin{quote}...\end{quote} and \emph{}, whenever we have enough space in a publication. See result below with some random preceding text:

The respective tex code is:

\begin{quote}\emph{RQ T.1: What kinds of formatting options are used for presenting research questions?}\end{quote}

Let me include general advice that hopefully helps you with setting up the formatting. You can use macros for research questions for consistent edits. Typically, you repeat a research question in a dedicated (sub-) section or when you provide a concise answer after presenting your results.

Macro in the preamble (before \begin{document}):

\newcommand{\rqtest}{\begin{quote}
        \emph{RQ T.1: What formatting options are used for presenting research questions?}
\end{quote}}

Wherever you want to put the research question, you just type \rqtest{}. This way, you do not only deal with the presentation in one place but also help the reader to identify research questions in other places throughout your thesis by being consistent.