# Select ideas using a scorecard

AI Content Creation | Module 06: Find ideas with a purpose

## Your goal

Choose an idea for a reason you can explain.

Score an idea against the brief before producing it. Use a small scale, such as one to three, for usefulness, available evidence, and effort. Define what each number means.

High usefulness and strong evidence are good. High effort is a cost. A simple comparison can use usefulness plus evidence minus effort, but the numbers are your planning judgement, not measured audience response.

Keep a rejected idea and explain why it lost. This makes your decision more useful than a list of scores without context.

## Source pack

FICTIONAL PRACTICE BRIEF: Green Bench is a student repair club. It runs a free notebook-cover repair workshop on Saturday, 14:00 to 16:00, in Room B. There are 12 places. Learners bring one worn notebook; tools and scrap card are provided. Register using the club form. No date, form URL, access arrangements, impact figures, or testimonials have been supplied. Ask the organiser about missing details before publishing. This is a creative exercise, not a real event.

## Worked example

Compare a materials checklist with an unsupported impact story using a one-to-three scale.

### Scoring rules

Usefulness and evidence range from one, weak, to three, strong. Effort ranges from one, easy, to three, difficult.

### Comparison

Materials checklist: usefulness three, evidence three, effort one, total five. Impact story: usefulness two, evidence one, effort three, total zero.

### Decision

Choose the materials checklist because the brief supports it. Hold the impact story until real outcome evidence is available.

## Your work

Compare a materials checklist with an unsupported impact story using a one-to-three scale.

### Scoring rules

Write at least 8 words.


### Comparison

Write at least 8 words.


### Decision

Write at least 8 words.

## Review your work

- [ ] I defined the scale.
- [ ] I treated effort as a cost.
- [ ] I gave a reason beyond the score.

Completeness checks do not assess creative quality or factual accuracy. Review the actual work yourself or with a mentor.

## Quiz

1. What do these planning scores represent?
   A. Results from an audience test.
   B. Your judgement using stated criteria.
   C. A guarantee of engagement.

2. An idea scores usefulness 3, evidence 2, and effort 1. What is usefulness plus evidence minus effort?
   A. 4.
   B. 6.
   C. 0.

## Quiz explanations

1. B: A planning score helps a decision but does not predict results with certainty.

2. A: Three plus two minus one equals four.

## Further reading

[Anthropic: prompt engineering overview](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/prompt-engineering/overview)