What the researcher should remember
Why is research good? First, you do a topic that you like and get paid for it.Secondly, teaching and writing research papers provide an opportunity for mobility. Governments and universities offer many grants and scholarships that allow you to participate in short-term projects or relocate to another country. In addition, you can work in an unusual but interesting environment (for example, do field research) or write texts remotely.Some residences even offer sites for explorers.
If you are looking to pursue academic pursuits, take a look at the six tips below for future reference.
Striving for objectivity
Maintaining objectivity can be difficult.Here are a few points on how to do this:
Use only reliable information from trusted sources.If possible, refer to the primary sources.
You cannot customize the received data to the desired result.If the hypotheses are not confirmed, accept this fact. Remember, a negative result is also a result.
Try to explain as clearly and completely as possible what you mean by this or that concept. This is especially true for students in the social sciences.
Originality of the text
It's a shame if you accidentally borrow someone else's data. To avoid this, immediately add footnotes and links to other people's ideas in your text. It's bad if you deliberately pass other people's ideas off as your own. This leads to litigation.Yes, not always and not in all countries, because the issue of copyright is perceived differently everywhere. But in the academic community, this is unacceptable.
Relevance of the topic
Your work may be applied and socially relevant. Maybe,you will analyze the data and come up with a solution to a socially significant problem. But scientific relevance and novelty are also important. What knowledge will your text give other people? How does it differ from other works, and how does it benefit researchers? Try to answer the questions mentioned and explain how the work done fills in the gaps in the topic.
Use of scientific literature
Research requires good literature. For example, you are doing a literature review to find out what has already been written about your topic and what gaps are in it. Choose quality work.It is difficult to determine them at first glance - you will have to read.But to save time searching, here are a couple of tips:
Pay attention to the citation databases and editions that they include. For example, it is difficult for journals to get into Scopus or Web of Science. The publications that got into them value their reputation, and therefore avoid low-quality works.
See bibliography and footnotes. How well and competently they are filled in, what is the volume of sources used.
Use of foreign sources
It is wrong to limit yourself only to the literature written in your language. Thus, you yourself cut off a lot of useful research. What was written about in one country might not have been written about in another. There are topics with which only a few researchers have worked. Refer to citation bases and Google Scholar where you will find links to works in different languages so you can better study the literature.
The question and the topic determine the methods
Different methods of data collection and analysis are used when writing a work. Sometimes you will have to work with statistics, interviews, surveys and use the appropriate methods for analysis. Each of us has our own preferences during training.In addition, something turns out better, and something worse. But remember notour preferences, and the research question, the amount and type of data needed, determine the methods of collection and analysis. Only then will the research be the most accurate.
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