As a graduate student, I find that the rate of progress I’m able to make on my current research project is significantly lower than the rate at which I encounter ideas for new research projects. Over time, this means that the number of half-baked ideas jotted down in my notebook grows without bound.
In Academia, we sometimes feel dissuaded from sharing our half-baked ideas. Our fear is that we may get ‘scooped’; that is, we worry that if we share an idea before we have a time to flesh it out, someone else may take that idea and turn it into a fully-fledged publication, thereby stealing our opportunity to publish.
Until now, I haven’t publicly shared any of my half-baked ideas. I would like to change that [1].
So, in the hope of generating discussion, I’ll be posting a series of half-baked ideas. Please feel welcome to steal them, criticize them, or add to them!
[1] In part, this is because I have come to believe that academic caginess is petty. More importantly though, I have come to the terms with the reality that I will not have time to pursue most of these ideas.