Opening Your Mind & Expanding Your Thoughts to Get Published
It is a paradox of education that the very process responsible for guiding the untutored mind out of the darkness of ignorance and into the light of knowledge also leads that mind into established ways of thinking that have become traditional within scholarly disciplines. This is to say that the knowledge that can open any number of intellectual doors to endless rational and creative possibilities still tends to come to students in rooms with a set number of doors and, too often, with many of those doors firmly closed. Rooms, doors and the mental patterns they represent are necessary aspects of the educational process, of course, and should be shunned by neither teachers nor students. However, once you have progressed through the educational system to the point of conducting your own advanced research, it is wise to recognise that even the most sophisticated theories and traditions have limitations and that opening your mind to new ideas and perspectives can be a most productive way of expanding your thoughts and enriching your research.

One excellent strategy for opening your mind to new ideas and perspectives is to delve a little into a discipline or field of study beyond your own area of specialisation. Concepts and approaches that are conventional in one discipline may be unusual or entirely new in another; when applied in that new context they may prove to be the very concepts and approaches that will enable you to achieve unprecedented results and arrive at unique conclusions. This is probably one of the reasons why interdisciplinary research has grown so much more popular in recent decades, but your work need not be interdisciplinary in order to borrow from another discipline or field of study. Even the tiniest introductions of new ideas and methods can have a significant effect if your ways of thinking are altered and your research perspective broadened as a result.

Focus is another important factor in opening your mind and expanding your thoughts. Indeed, you need not seek new ideas and approaches beyond the boundaries of your discipline if instead you are willing to shift the focal point of your discussion or analysis a little or simply to look at a problem from an altered or varied perspective. Even changing your vocabulary somewhat as you explain, describe and analyse your research can lead you in new directions and generate unexpected thoughts and lines of argumentation, so do not be afraid of change and variation. In fact, if you are hoping to infuse your research with fresh ideas, following spontaneous thoughts in new directions can allow you to arrive at conclusions that would have remained beyond your scope had you stuck to traditional lines of thought. After all, you no doubt pursued a scholarly career because you wanted to push your thinking beyond the traditional patterns – because you wanted to think outside the box, so to speak – and trusting your own ideas enough to take the time to develop them is the best way to achieve this. Yes, there will be failures and wasted time, as always with scholarly research and writing, but there will also be victories and perhaps even advancements in knowledge that leap right over the conventional baby steps of intellectual progress.