Anderson maintains that responding to a specific prompt is, in many ways, the easiest and most straightforward approach to identifying ideas to write a research proposal. Prompts for research exist in the academic world as "calls for papers" or "calls for proposals" (both abbreviated as CFP), and they often articulate a specific focus of the requested research, as well as scope, guiding questions and even suggested literature. All a researcher needs to do, according to Anderson, is read a CFP thoughtfully to come up with an idea to write a research proposal.
Another more structured or readily available idea to write a research proposal occurs when a researcher has already read extensively within a body of scholarly research. Oftentimes, researchers and authors of other research proposals, scholarly articles and monographs articulate avenues of research they are unable to follow in their current work. These articulated avenues are akin to informal calls for proposals, as they, like CFPs, tend to present problems that need to be addressed in future research. Consequently, according to Anderson, extensive familiarity with the texts written about a specific body of scholarly research is an excellent way to generate ideas to write a research proposal.
If a researcher is unable to rely upon ready-made ideas suggested in CFPs or in others' research, then he or she can individually generate a unique idea. Anderson articulates a similarity existing between CFPs and the informal research suggestions in scholarly work: Both are attempts to answer a previously unanswered question. Consequently, an excellent way to develop an idea to write a research proposal would be to generate a list of unanswered questions relating to a specific area of scholarly research.
For some beginning researchers, a lack of background within a specific scholarly field is a seemingly insurmountable barrier between them and the ability to produce worthwhile research proposals. An undeveloped background in a topic makes a would-be researcher incapable of responding to a CFP or informal research suggestion, and it makes them relatively incapable of generating their own questions for a research proposal. In these situations, Anderson recommends dedicated and thorough research that attempts to supplement one's relative lack of background. He guides novice researchers to build extensive reading lists (a requirement in a research proposal) based upon the bibliographies and works cited of works the researchers examine.