HOWTO START A RESEARCH

TO
IV-CSE: FGA

BY
MR. A. THIRUNEELAKANDAN,
AP/CSE
 CONTENTS
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 Pick a direction
 Start searching for high quality readings
 Narrow down your Search
 Fine Tune your Search
 Perceive & Analyze
 Ask your Questions?
 Write the proposal
 Review your work
 Sample Proposal template

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 Pick a direction
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 Pick a direction or area of interest based on your background(e.g.,

courses you have taken, readings, conferences, talks to Professors,
etc.).
 Try to be as specific as possible.
 Do not pick 'wireless networks' (too general), but perhaps 'systematic
testingof wirelessMAClayer' or 'efficient handoff for IPmobility',

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 start searching for high quality readings
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 Good places to start your search are IEEE library on-line and ACM
library on-line.
 Pickoneresearchtopic at a time.
 You can also search on the web (e.g., Google, or Google scholar) but
please double check the publication details for quality (there are a lot
of papers out there!).
 Another literature-rich scientific digital library is citeseer.com, but
again, please double checkdetails for quality.

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 Narrow dowN your Search
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 Out of the search hits, select around 15-20 papers that you think are
most relatedto what you hadin mindand are of the highest quality.
 DoNOTreadall these papers yet!
 Check the title, abstract, names of authors, their affiliations, and most
importantlythe conferenceor journal.
 ManyIEEEandACMconferences/Journals are of highquality.

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 Narrow dowN your Search - ExamplE
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 In the general area of Computer Networks:

 IEEE/ACMTransactionsonNetworking(ToN),

 IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC), ACM SIGCOMM,

IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE ICNP, IEEE SIGMetrics, Computer Networks Journal
(Elsevier), IEEEICC, IEEEGlobeCom,ACMCCR, amongothers.
 In the more specific areas of wireless networks:
 ACM MobiCom, ACM MobiHoc, ACM MONET Journal, AdHoc Networks
Journal (Elsevier), ACM Wireless Networks (WiNet) Journal, ACM SenSys,
IEEE/ACMIPSN, IEEEWCNC

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 Fine Tune your Search
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 For the selected 15-20 papers read only the abstract, introduction and
conclusionin detail (youmayskimthe rest of the paper for a general idea).
 Identifythe emphasis of eachpaper:
 (I)whichproblemit addresses,
 (II)what solutionit proposes,
 (III)howthesolutiondiffersfromprevioussolutions, and
 (IV)what arethe maincontributionsandconclusions.
 Out of these 15-20 papers, and based on your reading and understanding,
pick a list of 4-6 papers that you think are the highest quality and that
address your research interests and the challenges in the field most
appropriately

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 Perceive & AnAlyze
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 Readthose 4-6 papers frombeginningto end, identifyingin detail:

 (I) themainapproaches,

 (II) methods of analysis: (a) metrics, (b) evaluation tools, and (c) analysis and
interpretationof resultingsimulationor measureddata, and
 (III) conclusions.

 At the same time, try to keep a list of what you think the authors may
have missed in the paper/study, gaps or limitations that could be
improved upon and any ideas on how to accomplish these
improvements.

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 Ask your Questions?
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 Somequestions to ask include:

 Did all/some papers use similar approaches? Have they used the same
evaluationcriteria, or methodof analysis?
 If not, thenwhat are the strengths/weaknessesof eachmethod?
 Also, keep a list of ideas that you want to explore further, or
backgroundmaterial youwant to brush upon.
 This will create another list of readings for youin later stages.

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 Write the proposal
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 Write a two page proposal defining, as clearly as possible, the

following items:
 Motivation
 Research challenges
 Overview of existing work
 Limitations of existing work
 Potential directions and ideas for improvement
 Expected results and impact on the field.

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 Review youR woRk
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 Have some knowledgeable (trustworthy) friends review the proposal for

you and give feedback (mainly on presentation and clarity, leave technical
remarks for the researchadvisor).
 For example, have them read the 2 pages and tell you (in their own words)
what theythinkyouare proposing.
 If/when you think it is clear, then discuss the proposal with your research
advisor.
 If youdo not thinkit is clear, go backandre-write.
 If you think you have missed some other work, then go back to the 15-20
list and pick another 3-5 good papers to read in detail, and re-write parts of
your proposal.

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 Sample propoSal template
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 Title
 Motivation:
 Related Work:
 Proposal Body:
 Problem statement:
 Evaluation metrics:
 Investigated Parameter Space:
 Methodology:
 Scenarios:
 Expected results:

 References:

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