Interactive interview to formalize a research idea into a structured specification with hypotheses and empirical strategy.
Conduct a structured interview through 6 phases to formalize a research idea.
After the interview, produce a Research Specification Document:
# Research Specification: [Topic]
## Research Question
[Clear, specific, answerable]
## Motivation
[Why this matters -- policy relevance, theoretical gap, empirical puzzle]
## Hypothesis
[Testable prediction with expected sign/magnitude]
## Empirical Strategy
- **Method:** [DiD, IV, RDD, etc.]
- **Treatment/Variation:** [What provides identification]
- **Control group:** [Comparison group]
- **Identifying assumption:** [What must hold]
- **Robustness checks:** [Planned sensitivity analyses]
## Data
[Sources, sample, key variables, time period]
## Expected Results
[What you expect to find and why]
## Contribution
[How this advances the literature]
## Open Questions
[What remains uncertain]
Save to quality_reports/research_spec_[sanitized_topic].md.