How to generate an idea.

At the heart of all inquiry is finding the questions that make even the most mundane topics come to life.

Bruce Ballenger author of Curious Researcher

© Karen L. Thompson, University of Idaho

Start from an inquiry-based position.

• This means you need to start with a question and then interrogate the question to generate others.

• Research in rhetoric and composition studies has shown that how students think about questions is critical to being successful in generating ideas, whether for an essay or, in this case, a proposal idea.

• It’s more than that, however, because asking questions can help you become more interested in doing a project.

One researcher who studied how first-year composition students pose and work with questions discovered the following:

• Students who wrote about their questions, rewriting them throughout the work, ended up with better questions.

• Students who voiced their reasons for asking their question and understood their personal stakes in the project produced better questions.

• Students who articulated a good line of questioning often seemed to use those questions as a way of finding and interacting with their sources.

The form of the question is important.

• The form (or syntax) of the question needs to lead you in the direction of research (i.e. the preliminary work needed to write the proposal).

• If the question you pose does not lead you in the direction of research, the syntax is likely the problem.

Example: question with weak syntax.

• Do students at the University of Idaho recycle?

• You can spot a question with weak syntax by realizing the answer to it would be either/or, yes/no, or simplistic such as “yes it works if students do it.”

• If you start with this type of question, don’t throw it away, just start interrogating it.

Ask your initial question other questions such as:

• What is the relationship between ——— and ———?• How does ——— affect ———?• Why does ——— affect ———?• Why does ——— cause ———?• What causes ———?• What causes ——— in ———?

You want as many questions as possible, so you can then decide the focus of what you will propose.

Example of how to interrogate an initial question.

Do students recycle? (initial simplistic y/n question)• What is the relationship between ——— and ———?

What is the relationship between recycling bins and how people use these?

• How does ——— affect ———?How does the phrasing of labels used on campus recycling bins affect how people use them?

Now we have questions that can serve as the basis for a research study. We could observe students using current bins, change the wording of labels, and then observe if the new labels changed behavior or users.

Once you have a set of better questions. You can start to focus your research.

• What kinds of information might you need to explore these questions?– Investigate if others have studied this labeling question.– How did they conduct the research study?

• How would you gather this information?– Might need the help of a reference librarian to identify the

field(s) most likely to have conducted similar research.

Reference librarians can offer you help with finding sources and asking for their help will save you time.