Research Ideation

Use the 5W1H framework to analyze your idea across six dimensions: What (the problem), Why (importance), Who (stakeholders), When (time scope), Where (application scenarios), and How (preliminary methods). Iterate through the questions and document results as the basis for a research proposal.

Search academic databases like arXiv and Google Scholar via WebSearch, extract DOIs from results, then use add_items_by_doi to import papers into Zotero collections. Open-access PDFs are auto-attached via Unpaywall, and get_item_fulltext lets you read indexed content for note-taking.

Gap analysis identifies underexplored research opportunities across five types: literature, methodological, application, interdisciplinary, and temporal gaps. It evaluates topic coverage, method limitations, experimental completeness, dataset availability, and theory-practice divides using comparison matrices of existing work.

Papers without standard DOIs need workarounds: arXiv preprints use the 10.48550/arXiv.{id} format, while other papers can be saved via add_web_item or imported directly as PDFs with import_pdf_to_zotero. CrossRef search by title can also recover missing DOIs.

Newly uploaded PDFs require indexing time before get_item_fulltext returns content, and the Zotero desktop client must be running to complete indexing. Large PDFs take longer; retry after a delay if the result is empty.

A good research question is Specific (clear object, method, and task), Measurable (defined evaluation metrics), Achievable (within resource limits), Relevant (academic or practical value), and Time-bound (realistic schedule). Evaluate candidates on importance, novelty, and feasibility before committing.