Researchers are continually learning and improving their craft. The thing is we all learn at different rates due to our effort, capabilities, motivation and environment. What interests me is the process of research improvement.
I think that I learnt the hard way. I put in effort and was motivated but my environment was one where there was little research knowledge and few research leaders to learn from and so my progress was relatively slow. I spent months writing research papers and after submitting them to journals I waited eagerly for the reviewers’ comments. The “long wait” followed and when they arrived I would analyse and dissect the comments, revise the paper and start over again submitting it to another journal. As the reviewing process often takes six months or more, years went by pretty quickly.
As I have gained more research experience I look back on this and think how much better (and faster) it could have been. A research mentor for example could have explained what the key characteristics of a good research paper are and explained where my research paper was deficient. A good research mentor could have also explained the importance of developing a network of academics as early as possible and the best ways to go about doing it. In short, a mentor could have saved me years just by spending a few minutes here and there to suggest what I should be working on. This list of benefits from having a good research mentor goes on and on.
A Phd supervisor is a research mentor and I am thankful I had an excellent supervisor. However, a PhD is like an apprenticeship and a mentor is still needed after completion as there is still much to learn about the research process.
Well, such a mentor didn’t exist in my environment and it may be the same for you. Maybe a blog such as this can help in a small way by being a surrogate mentor. I know it will never be the same as a personal mentor but collective thoughts are a way of knowledge sharing. So, what do you wish you had known about research when you first started out?
www.CompletePhD.com
I think that I learnt the hard way. I put in effort and was motivated but my environment was one where there was little research knowledge and few research leaders to learn from and so my progress was relatively slow. I spent months writing research papers and after submitting them to journals I waited eagerly for the reviewers’ comments. The “long wait” followed and when they arrived I would analyse and dissect the comments, revise the paper and start over again submitting it to another journal. As the reviewing process often takes six months or more, years went by pretty quickly.
As I have gained more research experience I look back on this and think how much better (and faster) it could have been. A research mentor for example could have explained what the key characteristics of a good research paper are and explained where my research paper was deficient. A good research mentor could have also explained the importance of developing a network of academics as early as possible and the best ways to go about doing it. In short, a mentor could have saved me years just by spending a few minutes here and there to suggest what I should be working on. This list of benefits from having a good research mentor goes on and on.
A Phd supervisor is a research mentor and I am thankful I had an excellent supervisor. However, a PhD is like an apprenticeship and a mentor is still needed after completion as there is still much to learn about the research process.
Well, such a mentor didn’t exist in my environment and it may be the same for you. Maybe a blog such as this can help in a small way by being a surrogate mentor. I know it will never be the same as a personal mentor but collective thoughts are a way of knowledge sharing. So, what do you wish you had known about research when you first started out?
www.CompletePhD.com
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I'm a PhD student and this blog seems like a great idea, it would be great to see the responses.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that. I do hope it takes off and lots of people get to know about it. Any particular topic you would like to know about?
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the PhD.
I definitely concur with your sentiments Craig. Looking back at my doctorate, the component that provided most benefit was a course I completed on Research Management that explained in great detail the characteristics of a good research paper. Over the past year, I have mentored several masters level research students in business. By applying these principles to there semester research papers they now can identify the characteristics that constitute a good paper. As a consequence, they are now achieving high distinctions instead of passes simply by having a well structured paper.
ReplyDelete