What is research?

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What is research?
• research. 1.a. the systematic investigation into and
study of materials, sources, etc, in order to
establish facts and reach new conclusions. b. an
endeavour to discover new or collate old facts etc
by the scientific study of a subject or by a course
of critical investigation. [Oxford Concise
Dictionary]

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What is research?

• Research is what we do when we have a

question or a problem we want to resolve
• We may already think we know the answer to
our question already
• We may think the answer is obvious, common
sense even
• But until we have subjected our problem to
rigorous scientific scrutiny, our 'knowledge'
remains little more than guesswork or at best,
intuition.
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Golden Rule #1: Know what you are
doing

• You should have

– a clear and concise one-sentence summary
of your topic
– a clear and concise one-paragraph summary
of your topic
• You should be able to explain your topic
– to your peers
– to your friends
– to someone you meet on the train
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Golden Rule #2: Always have a plan
• Know what the targets for your research are, in
precise enough terms that you will know when
you are done
• Make explicit what the intermediate steps on
the way to your targets look like
• Risk analysis should realistically assess the
likely/possible main difficulties
– Have some contingency plans in mind, and
make them explicit in your planning
document
• “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”
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Golden Rule #3: Think outcomes

• Where do you want to go or what do you want

to do after?
• What will your CV need to look like to achieve
that?
• Identify the differences between your current
CV and the one you need, and plan how you
will remove the difference
• Focus your activities on the main game

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Today’s session

• General ideas about doing research

– Some Golden Rules
– Skills and Resources
• How this module works
• Quick overview of future topics

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Skills and Resources

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Skills Area #1: Reading
• Read widely
• Split your reading time between material focussed on
your topic and more general background material
• Read for important content
– What should you read?
– Learn how to get the most out of what you are
reading
– Recognize whether something really is worth reading
• Read with specific questions in mind
• What does it mean if you don’t understand the paper
you’re reading?
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What does it mean if you don’t
understand the paper you’re reading?
• You are the problem • The paper is the problem
because because
– you are stupid – it’s badly written, or
– you aren’t stupid, but badly structured
you lack some – it’s not relevant after
background knowledge all
– you’ve misunderstood – it is making
some key element, or unreasonable
made some false assumptions about the
assumption about the reader
paper – it’s bad science

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Skills Area #2: Writing
• Write constantly
• Write clearly and get colleagues to read your
stuff
• Examine other people's writing to see what you
think makes it good
• You develop your academic writing style by
reading
• On a practical note:
– Think about “Version control”
– Use your word processor properly
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Use your word processor properly
• Spell checker
• Style definitions
– They help you keep your presentation style consistent
– Automatically number sections: this helps readability
• Tabs, tables, figures
• Split long documents up into smaller files
– Style definitions will make merging easier
• What fonts and font sizes should you use?
– Check out the regs: you might as well use the prescribed style
from the outset
• A nicely presented piece of work says “Read me”
• A badly presented piece of work says “Fail me”

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Skills Area #3: Presenting
• Work on being interesting to listen to
• Audio- and video-tape yourself
– identify your idiosyncracies
• Consider doing an improvisation course
• When you see a good presentation, consider why it was
good, and adopt those features in your own
presentations
• When you see a bad presentation, consider why it was
bad, and eliminate those features from your own
presentations
• Learn how to use PowerPoint effectively

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Skills Area #4: Organization

• Always have a plan

– Research plan with contingency plans
– This is the main outcome of this module
• But also a personal plan
– Understand where your time goes
– Ask others how they organise their time
– Don’t spend all your time planning
• Involve your supervisor in your plan

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You and your supervisor

• Different supervisors have different styles

• Be proactive in meetings
– On first meeting (have you arranged it yet?):
– Ask what they expect of you
– Tell them what you expect of them
– (Actually, what do you expect of them?)
– Decide on frequency of meetings
• At least 4, probably 6 (= fortnightly) for this module
– Subsequently, YOU set the agenda
– Be ready to tell them what you have done since last meeting
– Know what you want to talk about
– Take notes and produce a summary shortly after the meeting

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You and your supervisor
• Supervisor will provide feedback on written work, but is NOT
a proof reader or English teacher
• Give your supervisor a reasonable amount of time to read
stuff
– Never more than 25 pages at a time
• Pastoral issues: supervisor is first port of call
– Otherwise (eg if difficulty is with supervisor) course leader
(who is it?)
• You will have a regular meeting slot
– It is discourteous to be late or not turn up without warning
(on both sides)
– Find out your supervisor’s attitude to skipping meetings if
you’ve nothing to report

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Skills Area #5: Researching

• More on this over the next 12 weeks but, briefly,

– Be aware of what has been done before and try to
BUILD on that: Don’t reinvent the wheel
– Understand how to use the library
– Understand how to use on-line resources
– Post queries to mailing lists but check locally first:
avoid early career egg-on-face
• Research is about a hypothesis
– What is your research question?
– How will you know you have answered it?
– What if the answer is “No”?

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