How to do Research - A Short Guide
What is a Research?
What to do when starting a Research?
How to do a Research?
Where to begin when starting MS/MPhil or PhD research work?
Why to do Research?
All of the above are the questions that each student asks when they start their research work. In this regard, this is a short article that discusses the basics of doing research. First, let’s define what is a research? According to my understanding and knowledge of the subject, research can be defined as
“It is a process
involving systematic and controlled investigation of a problem, using multiple
materials, resources, references and experiments, with aim to better understand
and provide an agreeably valid and relevant new solution to that problem, with
new or better outcomes and improved results reaching to an exclusive novel
conclusion.” {Dr. Zeeshan Bhatti}
In order to do
research and write a detailed comprehensive report of your work in a documented
form, you need to thoroughly understand the process and steps required to be
taken to carry out the research work. Once you understand these steps, then
writing a research paper is as easy as filling in a simple form. The basic
process of Writing and Doing Research is summarized into ADDIE. ADDIE is a rule
of thumb based principle research tasks, which each researcher must solve and
answer appropriately, in order to complete his/her research successfully.
A = Analysis of
the problem
D = Design of
Solution
D = Develop
prototypes à Solve the
Problem à Research
Development Framework
I = Implement
the System
E = Evaluate the
System / Testing (Verify and validate the Results)
Each letter of
ADDIE contains a huge component of research that any researcher, doing research
in any field, must solve. Based on this, following steps have been laid down to
assist any new researcher in understanding the process doing research and writing
a research proposal and.
Step One: Choose the Field of Interest
Choose your Field of Interest, the one in which you are comfortable to work in, you have expertise, knowledge and background understanding in that area. For Example, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Animation, Natural Language Processing, Human Computer Interaction, Software Designing, Image processing, etc. All these are fields and there can be many more.
Choose wisely,
as eventually your ultimate goal would be to become an expert and a
professional in this field or area.
REMEMBER: This
does not involve choosing the Topic of research, which is something completely
different, discussed in next steps.
Step Two: Do The Literature review and Answer the following questions.
- State of the current scenario in your area/field of interest? State of the art work in your AreaàTopic
- What is wrong with current scenario/field? Find the Gap from future work in literature/ papers, Problem Statement or research Questions
- Specify a previous working model, and technique and finally highlight the key problems and issues in those related work.
Step Three: Identify the Topic/research GAP after Literature Review
- Identify the research Gap from the literature review that you have done.
- Which topic or algorithm or technique you identified, proved to be interesting and worth doing further research.
- Did you found any problem, deficiency, ambiguity, gap in that topic?
Step Four: Identify your Objectives
Research objectives
are always your target goals that you would like to do and accomplish,
during your research period. These objectives come from step three, identifying
the research gap and must reflect your problem statement and research scope.
For example,
Objective 1: To
Develop Algorithm A.
Objective 2: To
Design a New User interface Element.
Objective 3: To
Enhance the performance of Exciting systems.
Put all ADDIE
aspects in the Objective.
- Design Model and Algorithms used
- How the system will be developed
- Testing and Evaluation
Your research objectives
must be SMART
S à Specific
M à Measurable
A à Achievable
R à Relevant
T à Time-bound
Step Five: Methodology
- What is your solution? Proposed framework? Hypothesis
- What is the working principle behind that solution, Theory, Principle, Technique, Model, Approach, etc.?
- Use ADDIE to discuss your methodology.
- Put some literature review in the methodology.
- Define the stages, Framework, Models, implementations, design aspects
- Why is your solution better than your competitors/existing solution?
Step Six: Results and Discussions
Results section
is the most crucial and important part of the research. All your steps,
planning, milestones etc. depends on outcome of your results. Therefore, you
need to be extremely careful with your results and how you present them in your
thesis. A badly presented and discussed results can significantly ruin the
thesis and damage the entire research process.
Usually each
result must be linked with research questions, hypothesis and objectives,
discussed in orderly fashioned as the research work progresses.
Step Seven: Conclusion
Conclusion must
reflect your introduction part, and must talk with respect to your Project
background, Problems statements, and proposed solutions, Novelty, Uniqueness
and Other Technologies.
Then you have
to discuss the results achieved through what methodologies that you had
adopted. How your algorithm/Techniques/Model/framework is working and how it
proved to be better with respect to results achieved.
Salient points to consider
- What is the commercial value? Market size and your target
- Who are the beneficiaries and in what way? Government, industry
- Scope and Scientific Contribution of your research and thesis.
- How your research stands out from the rest of the world?
Mark your Milestones:
Throughout your research period, you have to ensure that you follow a
well laid out plan and achievable milestones. Create Gantt Charts, Project
workflow, plan each phase of your research and give it a time frame, so that it
can be completed in within specified tenure. Some of the milestones can be as
fallows
- Completion of Theoretical study
- Completion of Framework Development
- Completion of Framework Implementation
- Completion of Experiments
- Completion of Evaluation
- Report Writing can be a milestone or literature review.
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