How to get started with Research?
By: Sejal Gupta
Tags: Getting Started, Research, PhD, Motivation, Computer Science

Contents

<Want to understand everything, completely new?> <Go to Beginning Section>

Don’t know how to select an area to do research? <Start from the Beginning Section>

Have an idea? <Start from Middle section>

Can’t find a base paper < Start from Middle section >

Done the hard work but still can’t come up with an idea? <Start from Step 9 — Middle Section>

Ready to start writing? <Start from End section>

Beginning

My very first step was to understand what was my area of expertise. You might be through this step; jump to step 4. But for those who are still struggling, let’s talk. Choosing the area of your expertise or something that you might like is a little tedious. There are many times when we are unsure of where the road is headed, but with some street lights on and a compass in our hands, we surely find a way.

a) I am positive you are sure about the subject. Great. Keep moving🧐. {My example: Computer Science}

b) Narrow down your topics into what you have studied till now and feel attracted to. {My example: Security, Computing power, Efficiency, networking, ML, NLP, DL, distributed systems; I had not studied blockchain or IoT. Remember that new technology doesn’t matter; what matters is the concept.}

c) This step will take two weeks. Go to scholar.google.com. I had 8 topics finalised for me. The lesser the topics, the better you can review 😊.

Give each topic a day and find research papers related to that topic. Just read the abstract and recapitulate your learnings. Next week, revisit the topics that conquered your attention more and read some more papers.{My example: the first day I searched for security on google scholar and wrote down the key takeaways such as encryption-decryption algorithm, various attacks, ways to overcome attacks, ways to decrease time complexity, etc.. and so on. Since I was so new to the whole process, I decided to go with the most relevant and the easiest one. Well, that was security, indeed.}

Please keep storing papers the abstract of which you found interesting. You can use Mendeley, I used a Pendrive, though to store all my papers. Oh please!! I am not an oldie, lol 😂

d) Once you are very sure about the topic, Superb!! But after two weeks, if you feel that there is still some scope of finding a better topic, take another week. Mind you, only read the abstract otherwise you might exhaust yourself in the very beginning. Yes, if you find a paper interesting, you could read through the introduction.

3. Step 3, Wow congratulations if you have completed your step 2 🤘🏻. The next leap is of faith. Stick to your topic, don’t try to change the topic now or anytime. You’ll find what you are looking for. Believe me.

Middle

4. Find a base paper (or if you already have an idea in mind, then search papers revolving around that idea).

How to find a base paper?

Bring out the papers, the abstract of which had compelled you in step 2 c.). Go through the introduction only of these papers. Select three-four papers in which you might find that the introduction is quite compelling. Keep these papers in a safe place because you might have to reference these papers while writing.

You might have noticed how I am taking baby steps. To select a paper, I used abstract only, now to select a base paper I am only using introduction, then to dive deeper I will make use of related literature and to finally start working on the idea, I’ll read the System Model and Proposed Scheme of the research, only. To implement my idea, i’ll read the Simulation and Results section of the article. Yeah, now you know the secret 🤫… This process will neither make you overwhelmed and will keep you on your toes to complete a research article.

Photo by Windows on Unsplash

5. Read the proposed approach of the 3-4 papers, and then re-select a base paper. We don’t start writing until we are sure we have done the research work. There is no sense in word-e-fying an idea if such an idea is already published. Remember this fact: IoT-Fog Computing System have papers that are 15 years old. Think if such a new concept has such old papers, then there is a possibility that your idea might already have been published. So thorough and latest research is fundamental. Be mindful that your base paper should not be older than 3 years.

6. After you have finalised a base paper, {Please follow the link to see what are some qualities of a good base paper} the next step is to start sowing a new idea in your head. Back reference papers from this base paper. Find other relevant papers. Read through the related literature.

7. This is the time when you would start reading the proposed approach of the paper.

8. After reading through the proposed approach {it is smart to ignore any mathematical equations in the beginning, don’t worry, you’ll understand them in the next week}; start thinking about where this paper has leaks or what can be improved.

9. Can’t come up with an idea? Don’t worry, now go to the related works of the literature, of the base paper; Again, start back referencing and only read the system model + proposed approach of these works. There is actually a small trick to find the paper… Go to the conclusions section.

For example, go to this paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jisa.2021.102768 or access here. Look at the conclusion section or future scope. It will reveal what the researchers want to improve in the future. Although not every time this works, but this is a nice trick to finding leaks and pores in a work.😉

If you find there is a good leak in some paper, chose it as your base paper.{My example: I found my base paper in this 9th step}

End

You are doing amazing if you have reached this step. Almost there. Don’t forget to follow me or clap on this story.😝

In this section, if you get stuck, then the way out is to take help from the 3–4 papers you found best and had kept with you. {If possible take the printout of these papers or at least the base paper}

10. Once you have understood the nitty-gritty of research work, start with writing the system model of your work-> then the proposed scheme.

11. Once you have written the most important parts of your work, pat yourself and take a break.

12. This is the flow of writing which worked for me:

a) System Model

b) Proposed Scheme

c) Security Analysis/ Energy Analysis {would be according to your work}

Take a break.

d) Introduction

e) Related Literature {My example: This took me 4 days as I had lost some of the papers I had read, so I had to find them again 😔}

f) Another critical section: Implementation

g) Graphical comparison with previous works. This comes under Analysis, but I did this afterwards because the first three things were very stressful.

h) Abstract and Conclusion

Congratulations on making it to the end. Hail the Almighty!!!!!

Thank you.