Finding a research problem or gap & addressing novelty of the Ph.D project:10

 

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Your Ph.D project will have a certain research problem. Now, who do you find a problem or research gap? For that matter, you have to study the topic extensively. Sometimes you may be addressing a same problem but your approach may be different with different parameters. Then, you have to clearly mention the difference between you work and other’s work. Sometimes, your research problem will be totally unique and then, you do not have to give such justification.

 

While writing your Ph.D thesis and even research articles, you always have to address the question “ What is the novelty of your work?”. It means that the reviewer wants to know whether you are offering something new through your work. Therefore, one must ponder over this question early on his project. Otherwise, you have to reorient your work later on which is a big problem and time consuming. Many a time, students get trapped in the final submission phase due to this. So, one should be very careful regarding this.

 

One should try to publish as early as possible to register the idea regarding a certain approach to a problem. Many researchers try to register the ideas by attending top tier conferences. When you present an article in such Scopus indexed or Web of Science indexed tier 1 conferences, your article’s extended version gets published in good journals. This way you can register the idea. However, you should be careful not to give away the main essence of your project. In other words, you are to publish bare minimum meaning you are to keep the main part for the thesis (more like a trailer rather than whole film).

 

If you put everything to the article, you will not have anything left for the thesis and you may face copy right issue in some cases. Then, you can continue your work in peaceful manner. While working in your topic, you need to check the recent developments in the certain field frequently. If something similar comes into your notice, you need to tweak your work to maintain distinction. For more such articles, you can check the book 'PhD guidebook'

 

If you like the post you can read or gift the author's books “B.Tech Guide Book" , "Campus Placement Guidebook" and "PhD guidebook"available worldwide in Amazon in Kindle format. These book will help you strategize your life. You will find many important things which are not discussed anywhere. Click in the link below.

 

 B.Tech Guidebook (Click)

 Campus Placement Guidebook (Click)

PhD Guidebook (Click)

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How to find the research papers for your Ph.D synopsis, introduction, literature survey? 09

 

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There are thousands of research papers online; some are good and some are not good at all. The articles should contribute to your knowledge rather than confusing you with half baked knowledge. You will find a lot of articles from the open access journals which used to publish articles in large quantity prior to the guidelines regarding publication by UGC. Now a days, you can rely on these indexing site for authentic articles

1. Science direct.

2. Web of science.  

3. Scopus

4. Shodhganga Inflib Net centre.

5. arXiv.org

6. PubMed

7. Google scholar

8. IEEE Xplore

9. JSTOR

10. Wiley Online Library

11.Taylor & Francis Online

 The articles indexed in these sites are considered authentic and reputed. Many journals in these indexing sites or platforms are free to access and others require institutional log in id. Many a times, your institute may not have purchased the service then you have to collaborate with students from other institutes with access. Otherwise, you can go to Sci hub or Research Gate for the articles. In Sci hub, you need to put your article title or doi number and you can download the article but the articles are available up to a certain a year. You can also connect with the researchers via research gate or mail to provide you with a copy which is a very old technique. You can maintain your presence in Linked In to connect with the researchers. 

You can read author's books to support the blog. 

Strategy to do Phd:08

 

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People spend a lot of time in PhD without any reason. The Ph.D should be done as early as possible because the more you spend your time aimlessly, the more you are wasting your opportunities. Earlier days of smooth sailing and landing in a comfortable teaching or R & D job no longer exists. However, if you are someone with specialist stature, you do not have to worry. There is always open road. This is not the case with many students. So, one needs to have a strategy. One can follow these steps for shortening the time period in Ph.D.

(1) Clear your course work as early as possible with 1005 effort. Many students lag behind in this step which is the most common in premier institute.

(2) Put your all effort to find the research field. Many people cannot decide and keeps on doing experimentation. I have seen a lot of people going halfway through a research field and then backtracks to start in a new field. One needs to be 100 percent sure of the research field and then stick to it till the finish line. While choosing a research field, you can choose something that interests you or you can choose something trendy to grab instant opportunities.

(3) After finding the research field, put your efforts to find a research problem. It is the one of the difficult jobs. If you can find it, you can start working on it. For that, you need to study extensively. Many a time, students look up to the guide for such a topic. The guide may moonlight something but he or she will never tell you to the exact problem because he knows that it is your Ph.D project and not his. No body will unnecessarily get into your business. So, you have to put your own effort.

Now, how to find a research problem. You can find easily by keeping this in mind “Whenever there is a problem in doing something, you can find a research problem”. Suppose, in your village there is no a single grocery shop. A grocery shop solves a lot of problem for the folks. You have identified that a grocery shop is a requirement in that area. You need to erect a shop by getting permissions from authority and raising some working capital.  Similarly, in research field also, we have certain type of problems everywhere. You need to find them and try to solve as early as possible.

(4) While considering the research problem, one needs to be careful because you will need systems and equipment to carry out experiments. Many a time, universities and organizations may not have set up for your experiments. In that case, you may need to write for grants. If you get grants, it is well and fine otherwise you will be stuck for good. So, you need to consider it carefully. If you have limitless time, you can do that. The project will be good but it is not suitable for everybody. I am writing for those students who needs to complete Ph.D as soon as possible.

(5) Research papers will be back bone of your thesis. Now a days, academic regulators like UGC has said that there is no requirement of research papers for awarding the degree to shorten the Ph.D tenure which runs 7 to 10 years in India due to non-publication of articles in journals. Though this is good for you currently, it will be bad for you in the long run. Once you submit thesis for review, it is better that you mention your publication. This way there is little room for questions by the reviewers.  Otherwise, people will keep on giving you modifications. You will be fed up and demoralized. This has happened. When, you have published your findings, it means it is reviewed by experts and there is no room for questions. Moreover, you will have to produce research papers while appearing in job interviews. Otherwise, you will loose valuable marks awarded for research papers in screening process. Right after finding the research topic, one should read ample number of texts regarding that and try to write a review article. This will help you to learn publication process and make you ready for publishing articles regarding your findings. Many students from vernacular medium struggle in writing and hence their tenure increases. So, one should start practicing writing as early as possible. You can take help of various software to smooth-en your linguistic skills such as Grammarly, Quill Bot etc. One should not use AI like chat GPT for writing because nowadays there are software which can detect texts written by AI system. You can use them for research but not for writing. They store the each and every text which you have produced via AI systems. If you use it in papers, the journal may banish you for good or reject your article.

6. Once you are done, start writing the thesis, first you write the literature section and then write material & methods chapter. After finishing those chapters, you can write introduction. This way you can keep your introduction oriented towards your research problem and methodologies which you are going to use. Then, you can write accordingly the results & discussions and references. Finally, you are ready to write the abstract. It should reflect the research problem and your take regarding it. Above all, it should include all the findings in a nut shell. Writing a thesis takes time. At least you have to give 3 months for this.

7. After writing the thesis, you have to give a presentation before the research committee. Once you are through it you are to submit for review. It takes normally 3 to 6 months. Sometimes, reviewers are quick and send the reply in one month which is very rare. In the meantime, one should keep writing research papers.  

If you like the post you can read or gift the author's books “B.Tech Guide Book" & "Campus Placement Guidebook" available worldwide in Amazon in Kindle format. These book will help you strategize your life. You will find many important things which are not discussed anywhere. Click in the link below.

 

 

B.Tech Guidebook (Click)

 Campus Placement Guidebook(click)

 

Our posts

1. Family support: Overestimate by students 

(https://authenticmedia2020.blogspot.com/2024/04/family-support-overestimate-by-students.html)

2. Knowledge trumps

 (https://authenticmedia2020.blogspot.com/2024/04/knowledge-trumps.html)

4. People may not like you all the time

(https://authenticmedia2020.blogspot.com/2024/05/people-may-not-like-you-all-time.html)

5. Retirement Extended

 (https://authenticmedia2020.blogspot.com/2024/05/retirement-extended.html) 

6. Financial stress

 (https://authenticmedia2020.blogspot.com/2024/05/financial-stress.html)

7. No one is thinking about you

 (https://authenticmedia2020.blogspot.com/2024/05/no-one-is-thinking-about-you.html)

8.  Expectation & over expectation

 (https://authenticmedia2020.blogspot.com/2024/06/expectation-over-expectation.html)

9. Two people, two lessons regarding interviews 

 (https://authenticmedia2020.blogspot.com/2024/06/two-people-two-lessons-regarding.html)

11. Strategy to Write a Paper during PhD:10 

(https://authenticmedia2020.blogspot.com/2024/07/strategy-to-write-paper-during-phd.html)

12. Collaboration during PhD to Write a Research Paper:11

(https://authenticmedia2020.blogspot.com/2024/07/collaboration-during-phd-to-write.html)

13. Anger Management 

(https://authenticmedia2020.blogspot.com/2024/07/anger-management.html)

14. Value addition 

(https://authenticmedia2020.blogspot.com/2024/08/value-addition.html)

15. Accept your reality (https://authenticmedia2020.blogspot.com/2024/08/accept-your-relaity.html) 

16. A few observations regarding AI

(https://authenticmedia2020.blogspot.com/2024/08/a-few-observations-regarding-ai.html)