Have you ever watched a movie or TV show, or read a book, where at the end of the story the main character saves the day by doing something unbelievable?   By unbelievable I mean that they do something completely out of character.  This kind of ending can leave a bad taste in your mouth, as if the writers didn’t do their job in making us believe the character had changed enough to become a person who could behave that way by the end.

When I was working on my degree in creative writing, there was a phrase that summed up the problem:

“Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.”

The idea is that people open up to the possibility that something is plausible by seeing relevant elements happen enough times that we decide a pattern is believable.  It’s kind of a “conception through perception” game.  If a character behaves in ways that build up to the ending then we consider the ending reasonable.  But if we don’t see enough evidence then we find it hard to believe and the ending will seem like a cheap magic trick and a waste of our time (and money).

In my own experience, I’ve found it pays to be aware that this little rule of three affects not only how writers convince us of story endings, but also how we convince ourselves that some of our ideas merit pursuit.

That’s because deciding if a research idea is worth investigating is really about deciding if there’s enough of a pattern there to plausibly lead to an interesting ending…and hopefully that ending will be a scientific discovery.

So let’s talk about how to translate this magic of the number three from creative writing into research in a way that will help us decide if a research idea should move to the top of our to-do list or get shuffled to the back burner.

 

THREE…Essential Elements of an Idea

 

Most of our time as scientists is spent in the “articulation” and “evaluation” phases of scientific discovery.  Meaning, we worry a lot about defining our ideas and assessing if they are useful, correct, and/or meaningful.

In starting on a research topic, it can be hard to formulate a clear awareness of what we mean by new ideas.  And once we’ve jotted something down on paper, or typed it up, it can be difficult to decide if the idea seems worth focusing on.  The tendency is to have conversations in your head about it and then put it on the mental back burner because of the feelings of “riskiness” that working on discovery-level science can bring up.

If you’re stuck with a sense that you “have an idea”, but that you couldn’t yet share that idea with someone in a three-minute sound bite then here’s something to try.  You can write this down, type it up, do a voice memo, or some combo of all three.  Whatever works for you.  I’ll use pen-and-paper writing as my example since that’s how I prefer to work:

 

1. Write down the idea you are trying to get clear in your head as a one word prompt. Stick to one word, no phrases or sentences.
2. Spend a few minutes (no more than 15) just thinking about the idea behind your one-word prompt. Now, write down three more essential words that capture the heart of the idea.  These new words should sum up the essential elements, features, behaviors, or requirements of your prompt word.  Again stick to just three words, no phrases or sentences here either.  But you must write down at least three words, no less.
3. Now create a list numbered one to three. For each number write down what you mean by each of the essential words.  You can write in phrases or sentences here.  But keep it to no more than 1-2 sentences per numbered item.  Start each numbered item with the prompt “By <essential word> I mean…”  You can spend up to one whole day to complete this list.  But finish this whole exercise (steps 1-3) in 24 hours or less.

 

This little exercise can help you generate a clearer picture of your idea by forcing you to pick and choose what matters most to you and define it.

That’s where you as a scientist bring your best asset, your personal diversity, to the playing field.  Don’t use other people’s words or definitions for this exercise.  Set your phone aside.  Don’t use Google.  Don’t use textbooks or published papers.  Just use what you’ve already got inside your head.

I cap the time you spend on it at 24 hours to keep you from overthinking it.  The goal here is to make a rapid decision—“research this” or “shelve this.”  You want to build momentum, not stall out in the graveyard of analysis paralysis.

The reason I say identify three essential words goes back to the accident-coincidence-pattern idea.  Three words is a good sweet spot to help make abstract ideas more concrete.  Think of it like triangulating a signal: getting three points of reference lets you narrow down and enclose your idea in a more well-defined area.

 

THREE…Sources of Information

 

At this point it’s helpful to get out of your own head and take a look at what other people are saying about your idea.  In theory, you probably started out by reading the work of others or listening to someone speak, which helped spark the idea you are working through now.  So you may already have some good sources to look over again.

The goal is to get three sources (by “source” I mean a written or spoken piece of work) you can compare against the idea you formulated in the previous exercise.  You want to read them (or re-read them) and compare how you formulated your idea to how the author(s) or speaker(s) formulated it.

The most important thing is to find good quality sources to help evaluate your idea.

If you don’t know how to find or consider sources for their quality, here are some tips:

• Look for good quality information, not good quality authors. That means you want sources that are complete, accurate and have minimal bias (or consciously acknowledged bias).  Authors, writers, scientists, journalists, etc. are only human.  No one produces good quality work all the time.  Evaluate each information source individually; don’t just assume that famous names, or even people you know who usually do good work, put in that effort this time.  We all have off days.
• Value sources that speak most directly to the idea you are working through with real data and more references to explore. Be open to traditional (peer-reviewed published articles, monographs, academic books, etc.) and nontraditional (blogs, popular science outlets, podcasts, etc.) sources.  Evaluate each source individually.  I usually rank items with real data (even if it’s just a thoroughly explained personal example) and that reference other good quality sources I can freely access (no paywalls) more highly than ones that are tangential to my topic or only talk in general terms.
• Try to get a good variety in your three sources. Make sure they are all by different authors or speakers.  Try to get different perspectives in each one, i.e., the authors are from different fields, different career stages, different job sectors, are different genders, ethnicities, ages, nationalities, etc.  The sources don’t need to tick all these boxes, but do the best you can.  Try to ensure that you don’t rely too heavily on just one voice in the debate, which could cause you to repeat what’s already been done instead of trying something new.

 

Again, don’t over think this.  I’d limit the time you spend on this to one week.  Do the best you can with the information you have access to.

Once you’ve got these sources, spend some time reading them and noting the differences between how you articulated the idea and how they articulated the idea.  You’re looking for similarities, differences, things they mention that you left out completely, and things you mention that they ignore (this last one is where scientific discovery lives).

 

THREE…Mental Examples

 

Now it’s time to move out of the “rainbows and butterflies” world and into the “bricks and mortar” world.

What I mean by this is that in the beginning we tend to be pretty excited, enthusiastic, and confident about our own ideas when they’ve only existed in our head.  This is the “rainbows and butterflies” world.  These feelings are a good way to generate momentum to get started on a project and they encourage “thinking.”   But they’re not very helpful to encourage “doing.”  Doing requires having a clear idea of what the next action is.  That’s the “bricks and mortar” part.  Rainbows and butterflies are inspiring, they captivate and focus our mental attention, but they are hard to hold in your two hands.  With bricks and mortar it’s much easier to grasp how to start building something.

Applying your idea to examples is a way to get started on the bricks and mortar “doing” and to see if you’ve missed out on any major facets of defining your idea so that it’s open to scientific investigation.  I like my three examples to cover three types (three is still the magic number!):

1. An example that fits your idea really well (an “exemplar”).
2. An example that doesn’t fit your idea at all (a “counter-example”).
3. An example where it’s hard to tell if it fits your idea or not (a “neutral example”).

 

Covering these three bases will encourage you to be deliberate and thoughtful and to assess your idea for its strengths (illustrated by the exemplar) its weaknesses (illustrated by the counter-example) and its limits and areas for improvement (illustrated by the neutral example).

You want to develop a more realistic understanding of what your idea is (you could tell someone about the exemplar in conversation as a way to help describe your idea) and to acknowledge its limits and shortcomings.

If the limits make the idea not useful, or the shortcomings show up for examples that are what you were trying to explain, then I find it’s best to go back and trying redefining my idea.  Try changing up the essential words or changing their definitions until you have an idea that holds up better to this simple evaluation method.

 

THREE…Drafts

 

Now you’re ready to put your idea into a working definition that you can make a decision on.

I know, I know: all of that work just to get to what most people consider the starting point for research!

That’s why the tagline for The Insightful Scientist is “Discovery awaits the mind that pursues it.”  Mental preparation and technique are a huge part of being a scientist and trying to make scientific discoveries.  Learning processes and strategies to wield our mindset more effectively is one of the best ways to run a winning race in pursuit of discovery.

The point of all this mental preparation is to give yourself a clear picture of where your idea stands and the challenges and advantages to trying to investigate it.  That is what gives you the ability to decide if it should move to the top of your to-do list or move to your mental back burner.

This last step ensures that you have something concrete to either (1) return to later if the idea doesn’t make the to-do list for now, or (2) act on right away if it does make your to-do list.

So set aside a day or two for this and type or write (no voice memos here) a formulation of your idea that is in complete sentences and includes both your prompt words, the essential words you identified, and their definitions.  Keep the entire working definition to a minimum of one sentence and a maximum of 5 sentences (i.e., a paragraph).  If you prefer word count goals, try for something in the 100 to 250 word range.

Write three drafts of your working definition:

• First write a “rough draft” that just gets all the basic elements of your working definition (one word prompt, three essential words, definitions of those essential words) in there in grammatically correct language with proper spelling.
• Then write a “second draft” that most likely changes some core features of the definition, like the essential words or their meanings, or adds on to clarify exactly what you mean.
• Then write a “third draft” that tries to cut down on unnecessary words, overly complicated phrases, or overly technical words. Just include the essential in your definition, not the useful or the interesting.

 

Once you’ve got your third draft of your working definition it’s up to you to chart your own course and make a decision: are you going to research this idea or not?  With all that mental preparation you’re in a much better spot to make a more thoughtful decision and you could explain that decision to someone else.  Game. Set. Match.

 

Good Things Come in Threes

 

So that’s how I translated the idea of “Once is an accident, twice a coincidence, and three times a pattern” into a way of gathering information to decide what scientific ideas to pursue right now.  In fact, I just used it last week to finally decide that one of the many working definitions of “scientific discovery” I have come up with over the last 8 months is worth putting into a paper to submit to the open access philosophy journal Ergo by later this year.

It’s important to point out that this general rule of three is not (necessarily) sufficient for a scientific investigation to be rigorous.  That depends on the method being used.  This rule of three is more about how to decide if fledgling ideas or flashes of insight from brainstorms are worthy of becoming methodical scientific studies.  But as a general mental rule, especially if you’re feeling trepidatious, giving yourself a set of three (sources, examples, key words, ideas, sounding boards, etc.) can be an effective way to help you decide what makes the cut.

There’s another saying that also relies on the number three:  “Good things come in threes.”  In science accidents spark awareness, coincidences spark curiosity, and patterns spark discoveries.

So maybe there is power and magic to the number three.

Of course there’s only one way to find out if my anecdotal use of the number three will lead you to your own epic story of discovery: take a chance, roll the dice, and jump in with an open mind to try it out.

 

How to cite this post in a reference list:

 

Bernadette K. Cogswell, “Good Things Come in Threes”, The Insightful Scientist Blog, July 26,2019, https://insightfulscientist.com/blog/2019/good-things-come-in-threes.

 

[Page Feature Photo: Close up image of red dice. Photo by Mike Szczepanski on Unsplash.]