It is a sad fact that even with liberal doses of curiosity, an interesting issue and enough time and money, many good research ideas fail to reach the stage of a completed project. Not all of us have the time to devote to the research methods courses and workshops that have sprung up around the country in the past few years. The Research Committee of the RACGP plans to help. This is the first article in a series that will provide the new GP researcher with guidelines on asking the right question, choosing the best method, and getting results published. The series aims to make research in general practice more accessible by demystifying the jargon, clarifying the statistics and explaining the rules of publication.