Elements of Academic Problem Statements

The problem you deal with in your essay must be formulated in a way that organizes the document as a whole. It’s usually best to formulate your problem statement in the early stages of your essay, perhaps in your introduction. A problem statement consists of a stable context, a destabilizing condition, consequences, and a solution.

(1) Stable Context—The ‘status quo’ surrounding your particular problem. It is the point of entrance into your essay and consists of information that will not be challenged by your reader. For example, “Most contemporary literary critics agree that ‘William Shakespeare’ designates an actual person who lived from 1564-1616.”

(2) Destabilizing Condition—Some particular situation or problem that has the potential to cause difficulty, either practical or conceptual, for the status quo. For example, “Recent evidence, however, suggests that ‘Shakespeare’ was actually a name used by various Renaissance writers who wanted to remain anonymous.”

(3) Consequences (Cost or Benefit)—The consequences of your destabilizing condition must (a) affect your readers, directly or indirectly, and (b) be recognized and accepted by your readers. Consequences take two forms, either the costs of leaving the Destabilizing Condition unresolved or the benefits of resolving it. Whether one fully articulates the consequences for the reader depends on the subtlety required by the argument. For the present example, consequences might be the following: “If this is the case, then nearly four hundred years of Shakespeare criticism will have to be re-evaluated.”

(4) Solution—Your proposal for how to resolve or dismiss the particular problem that your destabilizing condition raises. Your solution is identical to your global claim. For example, “The present essay will argue that there are indeed good reasons for believing that ‘William Shakespeare’ never existed, thus requiring a fundamental paradigm shift in our understanding of Shakespeare’s hegemony in Renaissance literature.

The essential thing here is to note the logical connection between these four elements. Once you have a particular problem to address, your ‘stable context’ and ‘solution’ should follow from your statement of the problem. We have a status quo that everybody agrees about, but there is a potential problem with that status quo. The burden of your paper is to articulate and analyze that problem and suggest ways of responding to it.