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Academic research helps distinguish ourselves from hobbyist’s dream. I planned many intended projects, highly possible, despite the fact that I am the only dreamer. In research, we must have a clear goal, some defined amounts of time, budget, resource, and knowledge. Therefore, we must be clear why we raise each question, how to solve problems, or when to end our biggest efforts. At the time of writing this article, I have just completed my proposal defense (22/10/2013). Hopefully, readers will gain some experience from my mistakes and performances before putting their hands on your main research. Expectedly, my research will not only produce computer code, tables, and charts but will contribute also this article for graduate students to fill their free time.
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1. TOPIC
Selecting a topic might not be as amazing as we dream. Choice might a big motivator but we should share this responsibility with other people as many as possible. At the beginning of the first semester, I proposed my rough idea with reasons and means to complete the project on time. I also demonstrated sufficient experience in the field so that I can expect and solve any problem on my own. Nonetheless, my department does not have any lecturer who can be responsible in this area. I told myself two and only two possible choice: leave this dream or quit this program. I questioned each lecturer about their field of interest and found that each of us can never be the same. So, my adviser suggest one or two topics, which we though it is possible to spend sufficiently 2 years to complete. I’m find not because I know everything about research but my adviser guided through the process of finding things out and the expected results. Once I have a clear topic and a confirmed adviser, this is not the end of the story. This is just the beginning. We can however be ready for anything possible, e.g. professor’s leave, funding, administration, etc. but I always remind myself these four major constraints: time, budget, resource, and knowledge. As long as I keep learning materials, everything will reshape itself appropriately without excessive feeling of the responsibility. As a result, I didn’t know when I made a choice to push myself this far. An important point to pin for fellow scholars, selecting a topic should not be done after we finish coursework because these subjects won’t help much. Selecting a topic does not prioritize student’s interest, adviser’s, or a third party’s; but communication, preliminary research, and balance are the main keys to break the ice.
Here are my answers to common troubles
- I don’t have any topic yet
- The lecturer has no expertise in my proposed field
- No body cares
- Is this significant
- The size of research
- With industry partners
- Where should I begin?
- When to stop?
- How to build a research framework?
- Who should involve?
2. REVIEW
Review of literature started even earlier before selecting a research topic. We are usually concerned about not finding the right material to answer the faculty’s requirement. In fact, if we try hard enough, “strategically”, the research can end up as a distinguished and respectable. If we start to look for supporting material without knowing what we are looking for, it is very similar to dive in an ocean to avoid breathing, or to go hunting without compass. In return, we will just feel exhausted. Before selecting the right topic, review is not simply about crawling in old reference book cave, just to smell the dust. We should review the motivations behind each goal. This step can problematic for fresh graduates who did not confront the environment at workplace sufficiently.
For people who are tired enough about being scolded, working overtime, or late supply, etc. can simply start from personal problem, then fix an objective or multiple at once, then trace available methodology to solve those problem. If at least one parameter does not fit in our context, we can propose a new topic while expecting different outcome and scientifically significance to the current problem. Then, and then, and therefore, this is the beginning of a research. There are more headache to come but we did build a rigid foundation, not an empty stepping stone.
Some students may prefer vertical approach. For example, a tenure professor was continuing a decade long research from his adviser. It is very safe to fit in one of their tasks, stick with a characterization machine, record the data every 10 minutes for 6 months, and finally make your own conclusion based on this data as your main graduate research. This is the dream of an opportunist. This is a paradox of feeling satisfied of being an accomplished graduate by being an invisible particle of an infinite scale of the mass economy. However, not many professors will consciously accept this shortcut. As another example, especially in social research, it is easier than simple to pick a very random paper from last 10 years, tell the committee that one variable in our sample can prove different result. Then, the decision will be made as a coin flip, head or tail. Otherwise, repeat this flip to show some statistical significance. As a suggestion, a strong research needs therefore strong reasons, unpredicted significance, and honest commitments.
[What and how to review?] Due to the crisis of the economy, people accept to pay higher fee in graduate schools while expecting good position back in the industry. But more number of students also increase the number of publications. They cause us even more troubles to look for the origin of the original findings. We may scope our search by tracing the very first source in references, then the connection in different dimension between recent papers closely related to our topic. This approach will describe a very clear view from a global perspective. Then, it will be possible to expand our methodology by extracting the strengths and weaknesses in each components of each of them.
[concept] Review of literature is not about reporting previous research or copy-blending well-written paragraphs from many papers to make a new one although they frequently involve at the beginning for a novice and unguided scholar. We have to revise the reference on regular basis, to extract the right key information which can contribute to our research. There is no wrong references, they can either support or contrast our work. Otherwise, it is the responsibility of the researcher to choose, not to pick, the right material. And otherwise, it is ridiculous to inform travel agency that our main research is about particle physics.
[plagiarism] While selecting references is problematic for researchers, presenting them academically can be very annoying. Students complain too often about paraphrasing many good sentence because they will simply ruin the meaning by the previous authors. To avoid this problem, we should discuss from the very early stage on the flow of the written report and dissertation. A complete outline is very critical. We should be prepared to modify it as often as possible. The role of the adviser is there to discuss and evaluate this flow to ensure that we are on the right track, the very best track possible, to complete the research. From a carefully crafted structure, students should be able to fill them with keywords, topic sentences, supporting ideas, and finally, their original paragraph(s). It is not difficult to spot plagiarism because a single paragraph by multiple authors will just sound weird.
[depth of research] Sometimes, students details too much about one topic and leave several other to the reader to research on their own. This is about the depth of research. We should compromise available time and number of words with a set level of references or detail. If we fail to identify this depth between our related topics, we may just feel lacking of some pieces of information. In this case, the adviser can intervene possible solution. It is usually fine to solve noisy references by tracing to the original source, but for highly technical references, it is important to tell the adviser early. He will explain if withing the field, otherwise, guide the steps to understand the theory, or else, it is again very important to tell him that we cannot understand the material sufficiently due to time constraint. At this point, there should be a shift or alternative material suggested by the adviser, but we also have to make sure that we did try hard enough to do our homework.
3. GETTING STARTED
A research should be started at the application to a graduate faculty.
4. Writing
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5. Conference
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6. Proposal
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7. Presentation
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8. Housekeeping
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9. Further milestone
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