Thoughts on How to Research – As a Beginner

After two months of my research life and reading the blogs on https://greatresearch.org/, I know more comprehensively about research and have some of my own thought on it.

Of course, how to research is a big topic covering various aspects. It is impossible for me to explain it clearly in a few words, and moreover, I am only a beginner. So I just talk about the points that hit me a lot, instead of trying to compile an encyclopedia about how to research or offering others advice.

First of all, I gradually realize that research is not only a piece of work but also a kind of lifestyle because it always lasts for a long time and things we need to do are almost the same every day – find a problem and then find a way to solve it. As a beginner, we need to be conscious that problem is endless and failure is the rule. This helps us a lot to build a positive attitude towards daily work and overcome the fear of failure.

Equipped with a proper attitude, we can focus on some specific issues in our research life:

• Targets are essential. Targets here can be divided into two categories. One is research-content-related, e.g. the research direction, the problem we want to solve, and so on. The other is time-related, i.e. how long I need to finish a task. Both kinds of targets are important and the latter is updated much more frequently. Targets make things more logical and help us start a task quickly. However, unlike previous learning stages, there are fewer tasks with strict time limits and clear targets now. So we must learn to set our own targets properly. It’s a gradual process to break down the long-term target and arrange daily targets according to our ability. We can write a to-do list and make a summary at the end of the day to adjust the list for the next day.
• Time is money. It is needless to say how time is precious. All the advice about time management in this blog is useful. Besides, what I want to say is that don’t complete the task for the sake of completing the task, especially for reading a paper or other materials. We need to strike a balance between time efficiency and task performance.
• Learn to organize. Inspiration and creativity are important but good research also can’t be separated from good organization. From the beginning to the end, we keep organizing everything. To generate ideas, we need to organize the previous works. When analyzing the experimental results, organizing data is an important step. Good organization also makes our writing and talking more fluent and clear. The ability to organize, in other words, the ability to find the inner connection between things is so important that we are required to practice consciously.

In addition to the above, there are a lot of details in the research process, which is a rare opportunity for comprehensive self-improvement. Don’t waste the chance, start now！