General Comments on Research

PREAMBLE:

Research, by its very nature, is a step into the unknown and therefore open-ended; there are no guarantees. As such, your supervisor(s) will not know the answer to your research questions (research is not the same as coursework). This step is usually guided by the results of previous researchers in the field. Such previous work "sets the scene"/points you in the right direction/tells you where to look. Steady, methodical and persistent effort on your part is then necessary to reach your research goal, often employing the scientific/experimental method(s) (e.g. hypothesis testing). Of itself, this might not be sufficient; genuine insight, serendipity and unexpected "connections" from seemingly unrelated areas are often necessary. These can neither be anticipated, nor manifested at will. Many scientific breakthroughs come from the most unexpected sources.

RESEARCH METHODS:

In order to (a) become familiar with your chosen area of research, and (b) to ensure you don't "reinvent the wheel" and commence working on a topic which has been previously researched, it is essential to become familiar with the published literature in the field. A good way of doing this is to write your own literature survey/review article, perhaps even presenting a seminar/conference paper on your findings. This helps you not only to familiarise yourself with previous work, but also to highlight what has yet to be done/what problems remain to be solved in your chosen field. It also helps to identify areas in which you are perhaps weak and need to learn and/or improve your skills.

The first six months of a 3-year PhD programme should be devoted to a literature survey; the second six months to replicating previous work. By the end of the first year, it should become clear as to how the earlier work can be extended/improved, thus enabling a detailed research proposal to be formulated. Naturally, the remaining two years are spent in following these ideas (and periodically backtracking and revising your research plan in the light of your findings).

NOTE:

For Research Masters (and undergraduate Honours), it is quite valid to work on a topic which has been researched previously, but from a different perspective/extending it in some manner. For a PhD, an original contribution to knowledge is required - establishing what has been done previously and identifying a substantial problem to tackle is even more critical here. Successfully applying new/different (and better) techniques to problems previously solved by other means is still a valid approach for a PhD however.

In order to conduct a literature survey, you will need to hone your library skills, specifically: (i) how to track down survey papers/introductory books, (ii) developing the art of quickly reading and evaluating abstracts (at least - entire papers if appropriate), (iii) identification of the classic references in the field, and subsequently tracking them down (in hard copy form, either within the UOW Library, or via Inter-Library Loans), (iv) use of the UOW on-line Library resources, as well as more general searching of the World Wide Web, & (v) the ability to critically evaluate what's been done previously. In short, who are the key researchers in the field? What are the seminal works/books/survey papers? What are the most important journals in your chosen area?

NOTE:

It is very important to keep abreast of the latest developments in the field, especially if someone publishes what you are currently working on. If this happens, you may need to take a significant change of direction with your work. Thus periodic updates of your literature survey will be necessary during the course of your study.