Asking an answerable question may seem like a daunting task. Luckily, there’s a tool called PICO(T) that helps establish key elements to consider when creating your question. Use this acronym to determine the following aspects of your question:

P – patient/population/problem: who or what are you interested in?

I – intervention: what kind of treatment or solution are you proposing?

C – comparison: what other kinds of treatments or solutions are available? Sometimes this is a control - where the comparison is "nothing."

O – outcome: what do you want to measure as a result of the intervention?

T - time: what is the time frame for which you will measure the outcome?

Close up image of some delicious-looking pico de gallo.

(not that pico!)

image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreyww/5923456035