Question about a budding research project

[GeoDUDE!]

I recently thought of an interesting topic to research, that has strong ties to my masters thesis but also pushes me to new ground. I feel very very encouraged that I could think of something like this, but a few things have occurred to me:

 

1) I have done maybe 10 hours of journal reading on the topic to try and figure out of a)the idea is relevant and b)if it hasn't been done. b seems to be true, by my estimation, but what if i am making something big out of something trivial, and thats why no one is obvious. To me, i am kind of surprised that it hasn't been done. It seems like it is very ripe for the picking.

 

2) If i purpose research like this on a SoP for PhD admissions, and it turns out that while I show i clearly put a lot of thought and background research in it, that the question isn't very significant, will that hurt my admissions chances? Or will the fact that I tried to frame a question, and am applying to work with people who work in a similar field be encouraging to them ?

[glinker]

Hey Geodude,

It's great that you're thinking up new ideas. That's always a good thing. Many times people in academics are chasing their own narrow alleys, so sometimes they don't see opportunities right next to them. BUT it may also be that such an idea has already been worked on in a different context, and results were not promising. This is sometimes hard to find just by looking through papers. It might be useful to discuss your idea with someone who a) knows said field well/better than you (b)is trustworthy. Yes, ideas get stolen too. That way you can find out if it's worth pursuing.

[Usmivka]

I tend to agree, if it hasn't been published on it is more likely that initial results weren't very promising than that no one thought about the problem before. New techniques to answer old questions better seem more common than entirely new questions. Not to say that new (nontrivial) questions don't arise when examining data or models, just that it is rare.

Edited August 13, 2013 by Usmivka

[geographyrocks]

I would mention it in a general fashion, but definitely do not post the idea as if it is the only thing that you would like to study.  I hear graduate committees and advisors hate that.