The 6 Questions: Use Simple Research Skills Recommended by Solomon

Award-winning writer Kathy Widenhouse has helped hundreds of nonprofits and writers produce successful content and has gained 600K+ views for her writing tutorials. She is the author of 9 books. See more of Kathy’s content here.

An online devotional for writers

A Word From The Word

Listen and concentrate … cry out for insight and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. (Proverbs 2:2-4, NLT)

A Word For Writers

The 5W’s and H:  Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How? These six questions are the basis for research skills and information gathering. They’re used by anyone focused on fact-based writing, including journalists, researchers, law enforcement officials, bloggers, and more.

The six questions entered the mainstream by way of British writer and journalist Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) as part of his fable, “The Elephant’s Child” (1902). The iconic verse reads,

I keep six honest serving-men (they taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When, and How and Where and Who.

But centuries prior to Kipling, questioning as information-gathering device was endorsed in God’s Word. In Proverbs 2, King Solomon recommended six ways to gather information: listen … concentrate … cry out … ask … search … seek. Ironically, while throwing questions at God gets a bad name in Christian circles, He is the One who champions it. 

Asking question after question is one of writing’s foundational research skills. And it’s a foundational principle in the Christian life. An insightful writer asks questions to gain information.  An insightful man asks questions to gain God’s wisdom. 

A Wise Word

Questions yield valuable information for the writer.

A Word To Pray

Heavenly Father,

You want me to use solid research skills to seek and search and ask. Give me a heart that is eager to learn and insightful questions to ask so I can write with integrity. 

In Jesus’s name, Amen.

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