Category Archives: Research

Chapter 13: Research

Where Should You Begin Your Research?

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A far too common mistake made by idea seekers is that of depending almost entirely upon such information as they happen to possess by accident upon the subject that engages their interest. No matter how learned one may be, this casual fashion of proceeding is bound to be ineffective. Professional writers and professional idea smiths become ex­pert in building up their working material by systematic, thorough research.

Edison himself said, “The first thing is to find out everything everybody else knows and begin where they leave off.” Research is just as vital to the development of a commercial idea as it is in literary or other purposes. Whether the idea you want is literary or commercial, give full and exhaustive attention to research.

By now you realize that your imagination does not and cannot create something out of nothing. Instead, it creates by combination, adaptation, adjustment, transformation. And it has no alternative but to employ for the purpose the material which you provide it with. It is therefore necessary that you furnish it with mental images of the kind and variety which are best adapted for the development of the new forms, images or ideas required for the logical promo­tion of the purpose you have in view.

Your raw materials come from certain obvious sources. Reading is undoubtedly a chief source of an idea. There is scarcely a topic on which something has not been written. Reading not only can spark ideas but can also help you avoid mistakes. You may find clues as to what other people are doing, or reasons for not pursuing one plan rather that another. One may begin by consulting a dictionary, which gives one a factual and specific start, with historical deriva­tions, synonyms, and other trail-starting thoughts. You may next read the best textbooks covering the general subject starting off with the descriptive articles treating upon it which you find in the best encyclopedias. The general treat­ment of a subject found in an encyclopedia will often save you much loss of time in narrowing your subject and select­ing the salient points. It also fills in the gaps of one’s own knowledge and is sure to lead up and down some interesting bypaths.

You will also read the trade journals circulating among those engaged in the field you are studying, and of course the advertisements in these are very revealing and idea-prompting. Fact-finding agencies and sources are at every­one’s call. The newspapers, trade papers, magazines, tech­nical and professional journals, the ever-growing mountains of books, the Federal Government (now the largest pub­lisher in the world), the trade associations, and chambers of commerce (not to mention the Internet!) all these and many more—are constantly committing and recommitting all known facts to the printed page. Each organization has its own statistics and opera­tional reports. Every firm with salesmen in the field has a potential market research body at its disposal.

The Secret To Specializing in Generalities

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Not only reading, but exposing yourself to experiences, art and science and technical exhibitions, trade conven­tions, stores, shop windows, museums of various kinds, and interviewing people are all good ways to stimulate one. Find out what people like and what they dislike about the products they use.

Specialized reading, like specialized human associations, limits our mental development. Wide reading helps by sup­plying us a variety of ideas for cross-breeding. Medical inventions have been made by engineers and electrical gadgets have been invented by physicians. Get over the fence and into other fields regularly—that is a dynamo for getting ideas.

Specialization has some large advantages to its credit but at least one great disadvantage. It causes men to bury their noses in a single vocation to the extent of overlooking relationships that are obvious to the non-specialist mind. Years are spent working out problems in one field when the solution has already been found in another and may be had for the trouble of a little adaptation.

It is therefore desirable and often very rewarding to con­sult with persons engaged in the occupation or activity or subject with which your would-be idea is concerned. Con­versation with someone who knows a good deal about a given subject is often a quicker means of finding out essen­tial facts than are other methods. Alert business people are constantly asking questions and many times they owe fully as much of their success to the information they have ac­quired from other people as they do to the information which they themselves have laboriously worked to obtain by personal effort.

Mastering the Art of Asking Questions

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Don’t hesitate to ask questions for fear you will show your ignorance. The wisest and most intelligent have learned by asking questions. Some of the questions you ask will lead you nowhere. But what of it? If you ask enough intelligent questions, eventually you will have all the facts you need, and some of them may lead you to an important discovery.

There is however an art in asking questions

  • Never ask questions at inopportune times
  • Never question in an an­noying manner
  • Never exploit the ignorance of anyone, especially before others
  • Don’t be discouraged if asking questions gets you into trouble

Try to find out whether it was the way in which you asked the question, the time you selected for making the inquiry, or the jealousy, egotism, or ignorance of the person questioned that caused resentment.

It is odd how many people ask good questions, ask them of the right people, at the right time, yet do not listen to the answers.
Listening, like observing, is not a passive matter. On the contrary, it involves close attention to a speaker’s words, and a constant weighing of their state­ments. We are often so intent on what we are going to say, that we don’t half hear what is being said.

Know the Answers Before Asking the Questions

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There is much idea material to be had from personal experience—yours or other people’s—which is available to you, whether it be a refugee escaping from a concentration camp, or a shoe manufacturer giving a new method he has proved successful, or a mother who has dealt effectively with a certain adolescent problem.

The eager fact-finder gets much of his information from talking with people. Theodore Roosevelt had the faculty of learning something from every person with whom he spent as much as five minutes. Henry J. Kaiser is forever pumping people, according to one of his admirers. Individuals of this caliber are far more interested in listening than in talking. Facts obtained in this way particularly require con­firmation, but they are frequently more suggestive than those acquired by reading.

Before you go about questioning others, ask yourself the questions you want answered. Try to arrive at the correct answer yourself. This will develop your ability to analyze and to draw deductions. When you do discover a correct answer you will enjoy the thrill of discovery–a thrill that is far greater than that received from the most interesting and valuable information given to you by someone else. The greatest discoveries in the world have been made by those who asked questions and found the answer themselves.
In other words, you saturate yourself with the subject from as many angles and viewpoints as you can think of.

When Was the Last Time You Visited the Library?

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Having done the heavy reading and the interviewing, one is wise who will read general books, magazines and newspapers. One of the most prolific sources of ideas is the newspaper. This is not always because of the actual story, fact or information that is presented. It is also valuable for the association of thoughts which it brings to your mind. When you have an embryonic idea, everything you see or hear tends to relate itself to that idea to feed and nourish it. It is therefore of much importance to you that you expose yourself to as many experiences, thoughts and impressions as possible, and newspapers cover a great deal of ground with a minimum of time and effort.

The same use of associated thoughts also applies to your use of libraries. Much time can be saved by consulting in­dexes instead of reading through the books themselves. Read the index in the general library card catalogue under the subject you are interested in, and it will usually open up many new angles of a subject with comparatively little effort. Gaps in your knowledge can then be filled in by consulting the actual books themselves as far as necessary. Once the book is in your hand, you can often gain a good deal out of the index of the individual book, without delv­ing through the whole of it, but merely referring to the pages that appear to be concerned with your topic.

In consulting the library cards, it may be suggested, do not limit your search only to the single word which best expresses your subject or object. Try other words of related meaning, until you have exhausted all the possibilities. Anyone can look up a reference to the obvious thing. You will get new relationships and ideas by pursuing the matter beyond the obvious boundaries. Often reports and pamph­lets issued by the national government or by the state governments, or by organizations that exist for specific pur­poses, will be found of value. So too, the many free pamph­lets available from advertisers. The idea seeker should have a nose for news for such things and should be always ferreting out unusual sources of information which may prove provocative of actual ideas or of background knowl­edge leading to seed thoughts.

The idea seeker should make it a practice to cultivate the habit of having a blue pencil at hand whenever he reads, so that he may mark every item which describes an interesting person, place or thing which can be followed up for more detailed information. (Nowadays, we have at hand the ever ready highlighter, in multiple colors of course!) Things are happening every day which are only briefly described in the news and about which many additional facts of interest can be ob­tained if one will only pursue them for what they are worth and utilize their possibilities. One also derives from news­papers the names of people one might interview for addi­tional authoritative assistance on the subject of the research.

What Is Your Approach To Thought?

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At this point it may be mentioned that an important factor too often neglected is the matter of thinking. Most of us love to drift along without this useful activity, but it is certainly true that thinking should precede any search for material outside of the mind, and should certainly al­ways accompany all searches for idea material.

By this process, a far greater degree of originality is expressed. Thought is approached from a different viewpoint by every personality because no two people have exactly the same experiences back of them. If upon conceiving a subject, you begin reading at once before you do any thinking, there is great danger that you will be completely influenced by the ideas you read. If however, you do your own thinking first, assuming you have some knowledge of the subject, your thinking will be more apt to be fresh and along different lines.

This is also true as a preliminary to conversations or interviews. Before you seek material through conversation with others, do what you can toward original thought. It usually happens that the type of person whom one would consult as an authority will be someone of strong person­ality. Such a person is likely to exercise a dominating in­fluence and so govern your thought. If on the other hand you have previously done your own reflecting on the sub­ject, there is a greater probability that your questions will govern the trend of the conversation. You will find out the things you require to find out to fill the gaps in your knowl­edge, and errors in your thinking will have a chance of being corrected.

How To Steer Clear of Incorrect Inferences

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The warning may be given here that you distinguish between facts and inferences–both yours and the other person’s. There is always a tendency for people to jump to conclusions. They infer certain things from what they see, and they frequently confuse what they really see with what they infer. Furthermore, we are always apt to see what we are looking for, even if it isn’t there. That is to say, our observations are very likely to be tinged by our desires.

A doting parent often sees signs of promise in a child which is quite invisible to others.

As prompters of ideas, facts are your greatest utility. So whenever you find yourself stuck for a new idea, turn to facts. They afford your best chance of finding new ex­pedients, new lines of action, and new modes of treatment. There is a definite relation between the amount of knowl­edge which people possess and their ability to think creatively and generate original ideas.

It cannot therefore be over estimated that a file of inter­esting facts, gathered from all the available sources already mentioned, is one of the best instruments for the serious idea seeker. One man got hold of an obscure marine journal and was able to develop several good sea stories as a result of his find. Another person came across an article on poisons in an old magazine and was able to write a number of detective stories based on the information. People who write stories of the science-fiction type rely to some extent on the Patent Office Gazette. Even Shakespeare is said to have read old Roman stories for some of his plot ideas. Dumas is said to have maintained a staff of researchers to provide him with facts.

The Importance of Fact Finding, Filing and Recalling

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As you see, you can find facts anywhere and everywhere You may not at first have the slightest inkling as to what you will do with them, but the chances are that if they prove intriguing to you, others will also find them inter­esting. This means that their value to you lies in ultimate rather than immediate use, and for this reason they should become a part of your file resources, part of the invaluable background material which every idea seeker urgently requires. The subject itself does not have to have any logical connection with the work you are engaged in. A long as it is likely to have a “transfer” value, or stimulate a train of thought, or arouse an emotion in you, it can be of use. Such facts may represent any field of knowledge, whether of the psychological, human relations type, the scientific or technological, the cultural, the practical or merely the curious.

Such a fact might be one found in The Almighty Atom, that “one pound of uranium 235, reduced to atomic energy, could heat the average home for 171 years.”

Here is an odd fact of a different kind: A chair without arms but with a curved back was called a cathedra in the early days of Rome. It was the most comfortable chair known in the Roman cities and was at first used only by women, though later men decided that they might as well be comfortable too. Its employment by teachers in the schools of rhetoric gave rise to the expression “ex cathedra” applied to authoritative utterances of every kind, and its use by bishops explains our word “cathedral.”

As a psychological illustration, there was a filling station owner who wanted to increase gasoline sales. He noted that most customers ask for five gallons when often the tank would hold more. By simply asking the question, “Shall I fill her up?” he increased business ten per cent. Not altogether satisfied with this, because he noticed that some people replied, “Oh, I guess five will do,” a different question was tried. “How much will she hold?” Asking this question briskly and with the assumption that the customer could use a full tank, the customer almost invariably looked at the gauge and replied that the tank would hold six, eight or ten gallons, or whatever it might be. The attendant immediately began to pump in that amount, and another ten per cent increase was the result.
In this connection, Elmer Wheeler’s famous “Sizzle Book” of tested selling sentences may be recalled.

A World of Interesting Things

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Another practical idea was the one a young man evolved to relieve the effect of excessive vibration in a machine shop where he worked. He brought a rubber mat to stand on. But someone stole the mat. He conceived the idea of cutting bits of rubber and nailing them to his heels so no one could walk away with his mat. This was Humphrey O’Sullivan, and that’s how rubber heels were invented.

Or again, as a fascinating fact, according to the famous research group known as Technocracy, everyone in this country could have goods and services at his command to the value of $20,000 a year, on the basis of today’s produc­tion, if we abandoned our dollar system and utilized energy certificates. This is because dollars can only be useful when there is scarcity. As soon as there is abundance, like air, a money system cannot work. This is a challenging fact if there ever was one, and good for many ideas.

By odd facts is meant anything unusual about anything —people, incidents, localities, statistics, plants, animals, and so on. For instance to bring home the difference be­tween a million and a billion, someone figured out that to tick off a million seconds on a clock would take twelve days, while to tick off a billion seconds would take about thirty-three years.

A research approach to a more sensible use of water supplies would be based on recognition that less than one gallon is actually imbibed out of every 1400 gallons pumped through a city’s water mains. It is manifestly unnecessary and uneconomical, and it is becoming less and less possible for many cities to maintain desirable drinking water stand­ards for everything that goes through the public mains. It is a practice already common in Europe and almost universal in Latin America for people to buy what water they drink from commercial bottlers who have sources that are free of man-made contaminants and to depend upon public service for the rest. (Editors note: Can anyone say “bottled water”?)

The world is full of odd and interesting things–para­doxes, coincidences, hazards, unusual occupations, innova­tions of all sorts, curious statistics and scores of things. New materials are especially interesting today for they hold the key to much future progress. The architect, the engineer, the manufacturer, the agriculturalist, the physi­cian, all are limited in their accomplishment by the char­acter of available materials, whether structural, energy-producing, nutritive, curative, or whatever the case may be.

How Open-Minded Is Your Research?

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When the researcher is seeking knowledge, his attitude is not antagonistic or belligerent. He is merely inquiring, and his mood should be a happy one. He is, at this stage, not trying to prove anything, nor does he want his own way. In fact he should be entirely open-minded, ready to recog­nize a new fact regardless of where it takes him. There is more to idea production than fact finding. The facts must be interpreted with reference to their relation to other facts. Therefore if he chances to unearth what seems to be an upsetting fact, he promptly revises his plan to accord with it.

The sincere researcher will not allow any pride of opinion to overbalance his love of the truth. He can be neither “for” nor “against.” He must be neutral. If he is not open-minded, he will be inclined to explain away an unexpected result, and will thus injure the value of any idea not based upon his actual findings. Research becomes futile if it is not acted upon. If he tries to force the true facts into some other pattern, he is not playing the game. He also over­looks the fact that some of the greatest discoveries and ideas have come out of unexpected results when such results were not rejected but were looked into more thoroughly.

Countless important discoveries have come “by accident” but they would have undoubtedly been missed without the observant eye and alert mind of the investigator. As one of our own great scientists, Joseph Henry, put it, “The seeds of great discoveries are constantly floating around us. But they only take root in minds well prepared to receive them.” The thing done by accident depends upon someone observant enough to notice it, and analytical enough to understand it. People are thus creating, or rather are helping Nature to create a better environment for all of us.

Effective thinking demands one to be a good observer as we have already stated, and what you observe depends a great deal upon your interest. If you have a job that seems dull and boring, your very first step is to find ways of talking yourself into an enthusiastic interest in it. This interest is usually the by-product of information about it. Everything is interesting if you view it with a tolerant veil of expectancy as you search out unknown aspects or hidden qualities.

Interest will enable you to make adaptations, and adaptations of similar ideas have been the source of new ideas since time began. In making adaptations you find the outstanding quality in the subject or object, and determine it real significance. What are its properties? What will it do? Will it do anything beyond what people think it will? Extract all the values from the questions you ask yourself as previously suggested.