Solve a Problem Paper
Essay by mattie_andrews • April 15, 2012 • Essay • 399 Words (2 Pages) • 1,882 Views
Solve A Problem Paper
The Third Stage: Investigating the Problem or Issue
The objective of this stage is to obtain the information necessary to deal effectively
with the problem or issue. In some cases, this will mean merely searching your past
experience and observation for appropriate material and bringing it to bear on the
current problem. In others, it will mean obtaining new information through fresh
experience and observation, interviews with knowledgeable people, or your own
research. (In the case of the prisoner, it meant closely observing all the accessible
places and items in the prison.)
The Fourth Stage: Producing Ideas
The objective in this stage is to generate enough ideas to decide what action to take
or what belief to embrace. Two obstacles are common in this stage. The first is the
often unconscious tendency to limit your ideas to common, familiar, habitual
responses and to block out uncommon, unfamiliar ones. Fight that tendency by
keeping in mind that however alien and inappropriate the latter kinds of responses
may seem, it is precisely in those responses that creativity is to be found.
The second obstacle is the temptation to stop producing ideas too soon. As
we will see in Chapter 9, research has documented that the longer you continue
producing ideas, the greater are your chances of producing worthwhile ideas. Or
as one writer puts it, "The more you fish, the more likely you are to get a strike."
There is one final matter to be clarified before you will be ready to begin
practicing the creative process: How will you know when you get a creative idea?
By what characteristics will you be able to distinguish it from other ideas? A creative
idea is an idea that is both imaginative and effective. That second quality is
as important as the first. It's not enough for an idea to be unusual. If it were, then
the weirdest, most bizarre ideas would be the most creative. No, to be creative an
idea must work, must solve the problem, or must illuminate the issue it
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