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You begin in the middle of the spiral and gradually work your way to the outer point. Each of the ‘spokes’ represents an action of reading or thinking something. Each time the spoke cuts across the spiral it is at a different time (T1, T2, T3, …Tn). The point is that each spoke is not the ‘same’ thing each time it cuts across the spiral. Ideas develop as you read and think different things in between. So the series becomes something like Idea 1.0, Idea 1.1, Idea 1.2, …Idea 1.n and you get an appreciation of the way what you read or thought in the beginning develops over time. When writing up the research you write up the spokes.

This is great for a process involving small sets of starting information with only ‘interference’ or ‘reinforcing’ effects between the original set of information creating change. This is not how scholarship actually happens, however. Scholarship is essentially a process of innovation involving ‘interference’, ‘reinforcement’ and also ‘cascade’ and ‘originary’ effects. A ‘cascade’ effect being that joyous moment where the ‘red thread’ of one’s work is apparent. An ‘originary’ effect being that moment where the differential repetition of ideas (what Gabriel Tarde called ‘imitation’) leads to development of a new idea (or what Tarde called ‘innovation’).