r/research

There are 2 things I like to research: fashion and history. For fashion, I struggle with finding more pictures of what the AVERAGE person wore. More specifically Id like to research japanese (or any foreign country) fashion during the 2000s, but im afraid that the reaserch i have found or done will not be enough because im not in japan and I would get more information if I was actually in japan. For history, where is the first place to go to find primary sources? Should I find a book made in the time period and about the topic im researching, should i be looking for a specific paper from a person that relates to thing im researching? If so, where should i go to find those (not talking about books)? A lot people say Wikipedia, but there's so many sources idk where to start. P.s. i like to do reaserch on big events, not necessarily people, but I'd appreciate tips on researching people anyway.

Real question here, how do I easily get information from research papers?

As someone interested in phytology, I often want to understand what chemicals or flavonoids are in certain plant species, and their effects on the human body, however I lack the ability to easily obtain the wanted information from research papers that have to do with analysis of the plants in question.

Does anyone happen to have a method of gaining the information you require from research papers? (Or is there something basic I am missing?)

Forgive me if this is the wrong space for this post, as I am very out of place here.

Im a medical post grad from the PH. Pls do reco local/international books that is easy to understand and is not intimidating. I love research and i lost my research and stat books from secondary school. Thanks in advanced! 😊

Hello all!

I'm GG and I'm trying to do my own study.

I don't really know what to do so I'm kinda following the scientific method - at least what the Internet tells me it is.

The research question I chose is: How does an individual grow on social media.

I performed some basic research and found one really good source that I'm basing most of my hypothesis on.

Also, I developed a working hypothesis: Growth in social media won't happen without personal marketing or some other outreach method.

I'm about to develop some experiments but before I put more work into this... Are there any good resources I can use before continuing?

I guess I'm looking for validation or something? Maybe someone to tell me that my work isn't... Well, silly. Or redundant.

Or someone to help me create/fund the experiments. (I do plan on contacting the authors of the original study to get their input or help or something).

I don't know, I think I'm progressing, but again, I'm completely new to research and I want to be able to do it right so that I can show others.

So yea, are there any resources that y'all know of that can help me?

I recently wrote a paper for my university course and just received my grade back; unfortunately, it's the lowest I've ever scored in an academic writing module, and when I checked the feedback, the main reason the lecturer cited for my low grade was the fact that when I referenced my sources (APA 7th) i would generally write soemthing along the lines of "as stated by so and so" ) and then tie it back into my argument which is how throughout my education ive been taught to use refrenced, the lecturer said that i should not use quotes when refrencing which doesnt really make sense to me. Just wanted to get some thoughts from more experienced researchers and find out if I've been writing wrong my entire academic career or im my lecturer was mistaken

Hi, need advice on including personal insights for my master thesis on use of bio based materials in construction in Europe and South America , though i have no access to any lab-works or practical things, just literature and a prototype which is being worked upon but i am not a part of that. My supervisor needs me to add my contribution and insights, but i am confused now what to do when i only have literature to read and where do i bring in new data or something out of the world. What sort of personal insights and contribution can i actually put in, based on my situation?

Submission in September first week.

Hi everyone! This is a question I've been thinking about for a while now. I have my own reasons, but was wondering what you might think about this?

I’d love something where I can import the papers I’m reading, highlight or type notes to the side, and then write takeaways I can see without opening the entire document. Or something similar

same as the title i really want to get into a research lab and everyone is saying develop lab skills, but how am i supposed to build lab skills if i can't get into a lab?

Today I caught myself in the thought "I always say I want to do research. But can I really do it? I mean I always 'want' to study things indepth. But did I ever do it? If not can I do it if I start now? do I have the capacity?"

For a little back story I have an opportunity to either select M.Tech or MS by research programme at a reputed institute in my country. I am deciding which one I should chose. MTech would be a lot of coursework and MS is highly research oriented. I have always wanted to do research and do something indepth. But even though I went to one of the other top institutes of my country, I didn't do a lot. I was lacking a lot of discipline, courage and focus.

When I started preparing for Masters, it was a decision to be more disciplined and consistent and on top of my own things. It was also kindof a realisation that anything just needs some hardwork to be achieved

just before this I pulled off something that felt impossible and scary before. The catch was that all those things "I achieved" are also luck. It felt like if it was not for luck, I would be pretty average..

So this all is making me question... can I succeed in doing research and generating some tangible product if I'm not much talented to say but tried to stay consistent, disciplined and kept on improving my execution skills?

It’s exciting to see how many people want to dip their toes into all kinds of research, but PLEASE for the love of all that is holy, use Reddit as a supplement, not your main source of training. You NEED a real-life human being if you want to become a well-trained, successful, rigorous researcher.

A mentor doesn’t have to be a Nobel prize winning PI at Harvard. Grad students and postdocs are also amazing, as are faculty at teaching-focused schools like liberal arts and community colleges, as are professionals who work in government, nonprofits, etc. If I could autoreply to every “how do I start research” or “I have a paper idea how do I do it” post with one thing it would be talk to someone in real life who has expertise.

This can be hard depending on your interests, location, skills, etc etc but trying and failing at cold emails and making connections until you succeed is also an important and realistic part of research.

Tl;dr obviously post on here but the kindest internet stranger ever is no substitute for an actual mentor

I just learned how to use VOSViewer, which I like, even though it is a bit intimidating.

Also, I love how you can use Elicit to automatically extract information from multiple papers through the use of columns!

Would you recommend any other tools?

Same

To what extent does schedule cold emails pop up as spam? I was going to lock in today and get like 150 scheduled over the span of 4 hours tomorrow (7 am to 11am) and I was worried that Gmail was going to flag me as spam. Is this true or no?

Hi everyone!

I am a masters student and I'm currently working on my thesis. I am conducting an online experiment which is about learning in the adult non-traditional context. So my sample is adults who are not in a formal education context. The issue is actually finding the sample. I'm using snowball convenience sampling, so I have tried spreading the survey online via various groups. But getting people to take the time (45+ minutes) for free (as I have no funding), is proving quite difficult.

Any suggestions how I might get a decent sample size?

I’m a rising junior and haven’t done any original research before. As a rising sophomore I did a pay to play 12 week research program on something I was interested in and got a lot out of it, but it was not original nor was it published. Is it too late to start now and compete in a science fair for the first time this year. I’m reaching for an ISEF qual and I have a research idea that aligns with my narrative and passions.
If not a science fair, I would still at least want to get research published. I have a professor I could likely seek mentorship from. Would an independent research project be more impactful than say doing an internship or academic program during the summer and going into the school year?
I’m aiming to be a more competitive rsi applicant. Lmk ur thoughts on my research profile. Trust me I alr know im not a competitor rn against the ISEF finalists out there, but research is something im interested in. Im just worried it could be too late to show impact compared to those who started competing in science fairs since 9th grade.

Hello everyone!! a young researcher to be here.

I’m currently working on my first paper and I came here to drop my question because even with my own research I couldn’t find a good answer.

I initially planned to write a secondary research, but I’ve found limited papers backing my research questions and supporting my argument so I thought it would be better to conduct an experiment myself.

The thing is.. I don’t know how to analyse my data!! I’m comparing between human-written passages and AI-generated passages.

Any ideas? That would be helpful!! or any tips for a young researcher such as myself to get my first steps in?

Thank you in advance 🤍🤍

Literature review clearly , probably combing conclusions and recommendations , help with spotting niche and hypothesis testing to add new knowledge. What the actual fu*k. Where is this going

I hope to keep being a lifelong learner but it requires lots of boundaries. In academia, there are many people that hate it and just want to be done with it. I’ve found few people that actually enjoy learning. If you enjoy learning, how do you keep that joy. I’m going for my 4th degree And I’m actually getting more excited.

what do y’all do outside of academia? For example, I treat myself to a conference every couple years or I spend two half days(1 full day) not learning