How to be Idea Smart

The ability to find new ideas that can be worked upon addresses the problem of plagiarism as only repeated topics or pseudo original topics which are a distortion of another’s original work, come under the plagiarism scanner; yet before starting research work on any topic , it is best to check for unintentional plagiarism and if it is present then the same research idea should be given a direction which has never been explored before, novelty can be explored in all the dimensions of a topic-its length, width and breadth.

Idea formation is a complex mental process, it constitutes of an intention, a motivation, a strong knowledge and or experience base in the domain and mental abilities like abstraction from memory, analysis and visualization. These constituents feed the idea process and when our brain is able to identify an arena which has not been explored before, we can call it a research idea. At the beginning of the research or writing career identifying an original topic seems difficult to most researchers and writers, but as learning progresses, economies of scale are realized. People in the research and writing profession need to be prolific and ideate continuously and should become eventually confident in doing so.

Idea seekers develop domain intelligence that is they thoroughly immerse themselves in the domain of their interests through reading, watching, listening and discussing and become well versed with the nature of the subject, its past applications and present opportunities and problems. Magazines websites and journals which are domain specific can be very useful for developing domain intelligence as they report the latest happening in the field, for example if the subject is construction materials, then researcher should regularly read from magazines, websites and journals in this particular domain. Books on the subject area strengthen the theory and concepts of the reader, being thorough with the subject through books and faculty guidance strengthens the mental ability constituent in the particular domain, by solving the problems and exercises that have been compiled by the author, the reader is able to get a strong hold on the subject. Reading research works conducted by other researchers in the same subject, though on different topics makes the reader aware of the practical problems that can come up during research work and how to best address them, the appropriate methods and techniques that have been successfully applied earlier can also be taken into cognizance.

To strengthen the mental constituents that feed into the idea formation process, systematizing can be applied; nowadays computers are used for systematization. Hence in computers we can store data and information into segregated files and folders. The researcher can maintain separate folders on theories and concepts, domain intelligence, tools, techniques and methods. The system should be geared to capture and update information. Such a systematic approach enables the researcher to have in view all the raw materials or ingredients that can spew up ideas.

In case of multiple new ideas, it is best to rank them; the criteria of ranking can be degree of novelty, practicality of validating the idea, costs and time and other important criteria if any. The most important criteria that of novelty and practicality should be assigned highest weight; each idea should be scored separately on each of the parameters and the scores should be multiplied by the weights to arrive at the criterion total, the separate totals when added together yields the grand total, a certain cut off can also be defined for each criterion. The idea with the highest total score is given the first rank and other ideas are ranked in sequence after it. Once the best workable idea has been identified, the researcher needs to work out the requirements for attaining the objective. The requirements should be checked against availability in records and fresh search should be planned only after proper analysis of historical records. For example in business and other applied research, powerful information system facilities can offer tools like simulation or data smoothening to understand any new situation with the help of already existing information and fresh data requirements can be made very minimum and specific.