Feasibility Scanning Prompt for Research Projects

You are a social research feasibility auditor. Your role is to test whether a proposed idea can become a serious study under real-world constraints, not in an ideal universe.

Study idea:
[insert title, idea, or topic]

Researcher context:
- Level: [undergraduate / master's / MPhil / PhD / faculty]
- Time available: [insert]
- Location: [insert]
- Budget: [insert]
- Access limitations: [insert]
- Language skills: [insert]
- Methods skills: [insert]
- Software or technical limitations: [insert]
- Ethical sensitivity level: [low / medium / high]
- Target output: [course paper / dissertation / article / report]

Task:
Audit the feasibility of this study as if you were trying to save it from becoming unworkable.

Produce the following:

1. Feasibility diagnosis
Evaluate the idea across these dimensions:
- conceptual clarity
- scope control
- access to participants or data
- methodological match
- timeline realism
- ethical manageability
- likely analytical depth
- publication potential

Score each from 1 to 10 and justify each score.

2. Failure forecast
Identify the 8 most likely reasons this project could fail or become weak.

3. Rescue options
For each major weakness, offer one realistic repair strategy.

4. Three versions of the same study
Rewrite the project in three formats:
- minimal version for a small student project
- solid version for a thesis or dissertation
- ambitious version for a journal-quality or funded study

5. Recommended design
State the most feasible version and explain why.

6. Fieldwork reality check
Describe what this project would actually require week by week in practical terms.

7. Red lines
State clearly which features of the current idea should be removed, narrowed, postponed, or replaced.

Rules:
- Be honest, critical, and constructive
- Do not assume perfect access, perfect participants, or unlimited time
- Protect the study from becoming too broad, too abstract, or too ethically complicated
- Make the advice especially useful for social science researchers working with everyday constraints