Questions tagged [research-process]

Questions directly focused on PERFORMING academic research. Do not use this for questions about publishing research. Read the tag wiki before applying this tag.

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632 votes
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How should I deal with becoming discouraged as a graduate student?

I am a third year (starting fourth year in the fall) PhD student in mathematics. I've passed all qualifying exams and am currently doing research. As far as I can tell, I am not doing poorly. I have ...
Aru Ray's user avatar
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69 votes
4 answers
20k views

What to do when you spend several months working on an idea that fails in a masters thesis?

How shall a masters student deal with the complete failure to meet the expected results when working on a master's thesis? For example, in the field of machine learning a masters student might spend ...
Magellanea's user avatar
272 votes
20 answers
34k views

How to avoid procrastination during the research phase of my PhD?

I just finished all of my coursework for my PhD program, and am entering the research phase of my degree with a topic already in mind. I've already started the research, but I'm already finding that ...
Paul's user avatar
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23 votes
3 answers
24k views

Are there any research careers except professorship for a person holding PhD in pure mathematics?

I'm interested in mathematical research, but want to know if there are good jobs besides being a professor. Are there any lucrative research-centric careers out there for someone with a PhD in pure ...
TheBluegrassMathematician's user avatar
33 votes
2 answers
41k views

What are the main differences between undergraduate, master's, and doctoral theses?

When I did my undergraduate thesis, my adviser was expected big on students expecting them working really hard, so it ended up as a reduced master's thesis (most of the reviewers said that it was an ...
Leon palafox's user avatar
16 votes
3 answers
31k views

Why do I have the "required reviews completed" status on my submission in Elsevier?

I had submitted my paper in an Elsevier journal one year back. Now, status update on the submission tracking says "Required reviews completed." However, for the last two weeks still there is no change ...
Srijan's user avatar
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69 votes
7 answers
15k views

Is it possible take take part in a research project if I'm not a part of a university?

I graduated with a Masters of Engineering, concentrating in digital signal processing, in particular medical and audio, almost two years ago. I've always been interested in research, but due to ...
Phonon's user avatar
  • 1,403
41 votes
4 answers
17k views

Requesting raw data from previously published research

I am working on a mathematical model to help explain some experimental results and generate new hypotheses. Unfortunately, I have neither the resources nor interest to gather experimental data, but in ...
Artem Kaznatcheev's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
3k views

How can I get research experience in between degrees?

I'm a recent graduate of a major university in Ohio, but recently moved to the DC area for my job (full-time software engineer). I plan to go to grad school for computer science in the next few years,...
erip's user avatar
  • 217
245 votes
8 answers
21k views

How to read papers without falling into a rabbit hole?

Often while reading a paper, I will see a citation that that seems more relevant than my current one. I'll switch to the new paper, only to experience a similar feeling. Or maybe I need to look ...
jds's user avatar
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123 votes
13 answers
53k views

Why do students go for a PhD even when chances of getting academic jobs on its completion are slim?

This is in reference to my question: How to do a PhD to equip myself for a job as assistant professor. I was told in the answer of the above linked question that chances of landing a job as an ...
Learnmore's user avatar
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37 votes
4 answers
43k views

Can I request the code behind a research paper from the author?

I am in the field of computer science. It is often the case when I am reading a paper I start to wonder, "Wow stunning results, however, I would like to prove that." or "How exactly did he get these ...
Carol.Kar's user avatar
  • 1,112
32 votes
3 answers
4k views

How do we know if something relevant is already published?

I keep reading European Conference on Computer Vision, International Conference on Pattern Recognition, and others, and I find so much in common in those papers. For example, half the papers seem ...
Naresh's user avatar
  • 1,101
193 votes
15 answers
24k views

How to stop hopping the learning chain and actually begin somewhere?

Here is what I feel whenever I find something interesting and feel like pursuing it : Oh so I like X (Computer Graphics), let me read up papers/books about it. Ok let me begin with reading up Y (...
Amit Tomar's user avatar
  • 1,879
84 votes
10 answers
25k views

What do mathematics researchers do if they aren't good?

I am a high school student so I don't know much about academia, but I would like to clear up some confusion I have over research in mathematics. Please excuse my naivite/ignorance on this topic. I ...
Prajanan Patel's user avatar
28 votes
6 answers
5k views

How do I find research groups that do work in field X?

What is the best way to go about to find a certain research group that do work in a specific field (e.g research groups doing empirical brain investigations but working from a dualistic perspective, ...
Speldosa's user avatar
  • 2,472
26 votes
6 answers
9k views

Worry about stealing of research ideas

I have gotten an idea in the field of Computer Science that it can result in a research paper. The problem is that I lack the adequate background in one part needed for this research, mostly ...
Layla's user avatar
  • 8,735
38 votes
4 answers
2k views

Is it reasonable to collaborate with a professor when you are employed by a different professor?

How wise is it to collaborate with another professor while working as a staff under one professor? Is there a ethical conflict in doing so even if the other professor is from a slightly different area?...
Stat-R's user avatar
  • 2,615
34 votes
5 answers
17k views

How do academics make money from applying their research?

There are a lot of very smart people in academia. They are at the front of human knowledge and push it further. Obviously, the research that comes out of academia is very new. My question is who ...
siamii's user avatar
  • 2,335
9 votes
5 answers
11k views

Applying for research funding as an independent researcher?

I am a Masters degree holder in Computer Science. Where I live, the most popular way of receiving research grants is from the government. There are two problems with that. First, You have to be ...
zzzzz's user avatar
  • 1,804
2 votes
2 answers
2k views

Math: Perception of only or mostly doing research in Master's for Ph.D. admission folks

Background: I'll be starting a 1.5 - 2 year master's program in mathematics this coming Fall in the US. Because of my non-degree graduate courses relevant to the program and my research interest, I ...
user avatar
92 votes
6 answers
7k views

How to become well-known in the research community while being a PhD student

This question is mainly about building useful contacts during the course of the doctorate. How does one keep the relevant community in other universities informed about his/her research work? One way ...
Bravo's user avatar
  • 22.8k
72 votes
12 answers
21k views

Is it OK to generate parts of a research paper using a large language model such as ChatGPT?

Large language models (LLMs) are complex neural networks that can capture and represent world knowledge present in the human-generated text as their weights. LLMs are trained on a large collection of ...
Hassan Abedi's user avatar
61 votes
5 answers
5k views

Why are CS researchers reluctant to share code and what techniques can I use to encourage sharing?

While researching a topic area I have come across a number of papers that claim to improve on the state of the art and have been published at respected outlets (e.g. CVPR, ICIP). These papers are ...
Stephen Tierney's user avatar
46 votes
3 answers
3k views

How can I improve the effectiveness of my literature searches?

OK, I know this is a pretty basic question but I haven't been able to come up with any really satisfactory solutions. (I have searched around on this site, but none of the related questions precisely ...
Gabriel Fiorini's user avatar
40 votes
5 answers
54k views

Is it legal to use Sci-Hub in Germany?

I used to use this website to get the research papers that are not freely available online. So, passing the right name of any research work for this Russian website will derive the paper directly to ...
Krebto's user avatar
  • 3,578
36 votes
4 answers
5k views

Is it possible for reviewers to mistakenly reject a quality paper?

If I am not wrong, turbo codes was submitted to the ICC conference and rejected but accepted later on. I want to know if there are other similar works (strong works) that were rejected at first but ...
x.y.z...'s user avatar
  • 559
35 votes
3 answers
4k views

How to efficiently read mathematically and theoretically dense books in STEM fields?

When it comes to reading, there are literally thousands of methods from Speed Reading to SQ3R to Sequential(Word by Word till the end). My question is regarding reading mathematically/theoretically ...
user avatar
32 votes
4 answers
5k views

Whether to publish one big paper or many smaller papers for a given research project?

Let's say I invented a system to solve a problem. To run this system, I made my own algorithm.I also created some other things for that system. The main contribution was supposed to be the system.So ...
zzzzz's user avatar
  • 1,804
31 votes
9 answers
11k views

What if my professor writes me a negative LOR, in order to keep me working with him?

I am a undergrad student, and I am currently conducting summer research under a professor. During our last meeting, I have revealed that I wish to go to school A for my graduate study. But my prof ...
kkou's user avatar
  • 311
21 votes
4 answers
2k views

What is systematic literature review?

I know what a literature review is and was wondering what makes such a review systematic? What extra steps do people usually go through when they do a systematic literature review? how is it different ...
seteropere's user avatar
  • 13.8k
12 votes
2 answers
7k views

How/when to become independent in research as a graduate student?

I am in the last months of my MSc and I have done my thesis. I have published some conference papers but most of them were literature reviews. My MSc thesis is about solving wave equations by means ...
enthu's user avatar
  • 7,488
11 votes
5 answers
2k views

Methods for finding graduate programs for specific areas of research

What types of methods are available to students today who want to find a University for a Master, PhD, or postdoc program that supports the student's obscure/specific area of research? For example, I ...
David Kaczynski's user avatar
11 votes
3 answers
5k views

Nonpaid, volunteering position in a lab

I already have a BSc degree from an unknown school in outside the US. I have convinced a professor at a top US school to let me join his lab to work on a project that he will propose and conduct ...
trxw's user avatar
  • 959
4 votes
1 answer
2k views

Doing a masters degree level research without following a Master Course

I have a degree in computer science but I don't have any research experience. But everyday I read research papers from free journals. I also managed to understand the content of them. Now I want to do ...
Npn's user avatar
  • 515
4 votes
7 answers
7k views

How can I get into computer science research as a high school student?

I am in High-School but want to pursue research in Computer Science, but as you know High-School usually does not offer any such options or tasks. So I want to explore avenues where I can get these ...
user avatar
116 votes
9 answers
21k views

How to stop feeling guilty about unfinished work?

My biggest challenge as a PhD student is best summarized by the following from PHD Comics: "Piled Higher and Deeper" by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com A consequence of working in research is that the ...
ff524's user avatar
  • 109k
58 votes
14 answers
9k views

Is there a single example of an outsider considered a "crank" publishing a ground-breaking result that was found to be correct (in the last 30 years)?

I'm interested mainly in mathematical and related fields, in which several important and famous open questions exist (e.g., Riemann Hypothesis). Almost every day a new "amateur" scholar (...
Dilworth's user avatar
  • 13k
56 votes
6 answers
12k views

If someone conducts unethical research unbeknownst to anybody, but produces positive results, what would happen to the research once discovered?

I was just wondering about this specific scenario. Say someone was researching nature vs. nurture, but his experiments involved keeping babies in a controlled environment for the first 10 years of ...
Zaenille's user avatar
  • 1,243
49 votes
11 answers
18k views

How do I know that I have truly lost interest in research and should drop out of a top CS PhD program? [duplicate]

I am a second-year CS PhD pre-candidate in a top PhD program. During my first year, I published a first-author paper at the best conference in my area, which I know is a big accomplishment. My advisor ...
Alice's user avatar
  • 561
38 votes
4 answers
4k views

How to get the data to reproduce a published result?

I'm studying published journal articles on my topic, and I'd like to reproduce their analysis. How can I get a copy of their dataset and enough specifications to reproduce their numerical results? In ...
user avatar
36 votes
4 answers
5k views

Is there any research on the prevalence of academic theft?

Some ­— perhaps many — academics seem to be very careful in keeping unpublished work secret. It is not difficult to find anecdotes where academic ideas are stolen, such as in this post by @Markus. ...
gerrit's user avatar
  • 42.4k
28 votes
7 answers
2k views

How does one keep oneself updated with new research without forgetting older results?

The title is fairly generic in nature, so I'm trying to elaborate in the body. I'm interested in answers pertaining to Theoretical Computer Science (TCS), but I'm certain the question would be equally ...
TCSGrad's user avatar
  • 9,561
17 votes
1 answer
1k views

Value of having done applied math research when applying to PhD programs in pure math

I will be a second year math under-grad in September, and currently doing an internship at applied math research institute. Most probably, I will come up with a research paper at the end of the ...
math's user avatar
  • 618
15 votes
2 answers
2k views

Finding a research group where I can work remotely?

I've not seen this question before, so I'll ask it after feedback I received on this question. I've finished my MBA in the UK and was awarded distinction but would like to find a research group to ...
Sam's user avatar
  • 361
13 votes
1 answer
7k views

What is the best way of keeping track of academic readings and persons?

I have started a brand new research from start of the year. I would like to know what are the easiest way of keeping track of the academic papers, journals and authors. I use sites like Google ...
Codera Purpa's user avatar
12 votes
3 answers
2k views

Is it possible for a high school student with no academic qualifications to publish a research paper?

I am a bachelor student at the second year of studies (Physics), but I'm an independent programmer since many more years. Now, I have some data about an algorithm I've done and I would like to ...
LowFieldTheory's user avatar
6 votes
3 answers
9k views

Can I mention brand names and their products in my research/technical paper?

I want to write a paper on Mobile Screens in HCI, as phones are getting uncomfortably big for users, I want to provide some solution to the big screen phones or how logically state that how small ...
1binary0's user avatar
  • 103
146 votes
10 answers
14k views

Best-practice models for "research" code?

I have been a professional software developer for a number of years, I'm also an academic researcher - and my research has involved lots of software development. I sometimes feel as though my ...
Ben's user avatar
  • 1,541
97 votes
4 answers
26k views

How do mathematicians conduct research?

I am curious as to how mathematicians conduct research. I hope some of you can help me solve this little mystery. To me, mathematics is a branch where you either get it or you don't. If you see the ...
Fraïssé's user avatar
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