Q 2. State your research questions. There are 3 standardized research questions every student must answer. They are listed below, but make sure you edit them to fill in your chosen TV program and topic area. Note that some questions, such as those listed under RQ3 will necessitate the creation of sub-questions. Plus, you need to add 2-3 more questions that are unique to your project. These questions should focus on contextual factors related to the program’s violent or sexual content. See the project overview for some examples, and remember, your questions must be worded in the language of a content analysis, not an effects or exposure study. 3. You probably already have hypotheses, or educated guesses about what your research will find. Turn each research question you wrote above into a specific hypothesis. Since you have 5 or 6 research questions, you should have 5 or 6 research hypotheses (plus a hypothesis for every subquestion in RQ3). 4. Create an operational definition for each variable in your study. A variable is any factor you plan to analyze or code. For example, every student will need to define “violent content,” “sexual content,” or “drug content” since these are key variables required by the project. Your job is to define these abstract concepts in very specific, concrete terms. Each variable is likely to be about one paragraph long or more!