Responding appropriately to source material Much material available on problems makes what can easily be treated as exaggerated claims for particular problems whilst disparaging others. This calls for openness to unforeseen perspectives and reservations concerning institutional and ideological hyperbole. Given the disproportionate amount of information on fashionable problems, this balance must be sought so as to give useful amounts of information on problems which may be of quite different significance. Elaboration of logical context Few, if any, problems exist in isolation. Many problems are defined as much by the context of other perceived problems as by any particular textual description that can be given to them.
Many problems therefore group together more specific problems.
These relationships form problem hierarchies. Because of the variety of ways in which problems can be so grouped, any one problem may be part of several different broader problems. Effort must therefore be made to position a given problem within a context of broader problems, if necessary using it to group more specific problems. The problem needs to be named so as to distinguish it effectively from both the broader and the narrower problems. Difficulties may be created because of conflicting perspectives in the literature on how certain problems should be grouped.