r/research

This is for a university course project. We had to submit our protocol to the IRB on a very tight deadline, and in a rush, I used two paper recommendations from AI. They are real research papers, but I didn't read them thoroughly before citing them in our background section.

The IRB approved our application, but I realize I made a mistake and want to fix it properly. We haven't written the rest of the manuscript yet. How should I update the sections I cited, and what should I tell my teammates? Also, I'm really worried that if my supervisor finds out, I'll lose marks or damage my academic integrity. Any advice on how to handle this correctly?

Suppose an article is written and cites few web pages to make a conclusion. Years later, those web pages are no longer accesible, not even via waybackmachine.

In these conditions, does the conclusion hold any scientific value? Because now the presumptions from those web pages can no longer be verified (since those pages are inaccesible).

And as a last question, if the web pages aren't accesbile via waybackmachine, but screenshots of those pages exist, along with the content referenced in the article, does the conclusion have a scientific value? What if those screenshots are fake?

Hi,

I am a penultimate-year medical student trying to get into research. I plan to start with a systematic review, as this is what most first-time researchers do.

I know the first phase of my work is understanding the following:

• Systematic, scoping and narrative reviews
• PICO/PEO questions
• Eligibility criteria
• Database searching
• Screening and extraction
• Risk of bias
• Narrative synthesis
• Meta-analysis fundamentals
• PRISMA reporting

However, the truth is I don't know how to actually start narrowing down my topics of interest. I don't know how to best document my work or the best tools that would help me do this. I have tried surfing PubMed, but it is kinda overwhelming, and it might be the ADHD, but I can't seem to actually lock in. I feel kind of lost, so if anyone has any advice, I would greatly appreciate it. I have a second author who is ready to delve into all the hard work with me, but no supervisor.

Also out of the list I have given above for phase 1, if anyone here thinks there is a better way to start this or anything else I should study to help me formulate a question please let me know.

Thank you for any time you are willing to spend on this post with advice.

Kind regards,

An overwhelmed med student :)

Currently, I am lost on how I am able to create this prototype since he never really gave me guidance. I want to make this as professional as I can and not use AI since I am going to be presenting it at a science fair. Is there any engineer websites that are easy enough for a high school student to manage?

I am a physics MSc student working in condensed matter theory, and I’m aiming to submit the paper to PRB. The actual research, calculations, plots, and figures are mostly done, but I haven’t properly kept track of all the references I’ve used along the way ( is that bad?!)

I’d really appreciate advice from people who regularly write research papers, particularly in physics:

1. How do you organize and manage references, especially if you haven’t kept track of them properly from the beginning?
2. What conventional tools do you use for writing/editing papers? I know about Overleaf/LaTeX, but I’d like to understand the overall workflow.
3. I used MATLAB for plots, but I’m less familiar with how researchers conventionally make things like lattice structures, and multi panel figures.

I’m specifically interested in conventional tools and workflows used by researchers, rather than AI tools that write or generate the paper for you.

Hi everyone,

I'm currently doing my master's and our university requires us to publish a paper. I've been thinking of doing a bibliometric study because it seems more feasible for me, but I'm a complete beginner and honestly have no idea where to start.

My research interests are maternal and child health, adolescent health, and public health in general. The biggest thing I'm struggling with is choosing a topic. How do people even identify a research gap for a bibliometric study? How do you know whether a topic has already been done or is still worth pursuing?

I also don't know what the complete workflow looks like. What software should I learn (VOSviewer, Bibliometrix, Scopus, etc.)? How do you go from choosing a topic to actually publishing the paper?

I've tried attending webinars, but they often feel like they're meant for people who already know the basics. The speakers move so fast that I end up feeling even more confused. At this point, I'm honestly feeling like giving up because I don't know where to begin.

If anyone has been in the same position, could you please guide me? Even a step-by-step roadmap, beginner-friendly resources, or advice on choosing a topic would mean a lot.

Thank you so much for reading. 🥹

What is the best way to write a literature review as a completely novice researcher/PhD scholar? What I've been doing so far is going through the abstract and conclusion of each paper (and sometimes introduction) noting down key points against the paper's name in a Word document, and then trying to synthesize these into a coherent narrative.

Another question is my mind, what could be the best use of AI in a literature review? Can AI be used for synthesizing e.g., asking it to just synthesize or collate my points, without adding anything of its own?

I've seen a bunch of "I'm an independent researcher, how do I publish my paper" posts lately and I thought our answers (mine included), as researchers, wasn't satisfactory, mostly questioning whether the OP had actually done any valuable research to begin with. It's not the best response because these independent researchers are genuinely excited about something, and we risk making it look like research is a closed community of pretentious people (which it isn't) and push them in the opposite direction (anything from low-quality predatory journals to pseudo-science).

So in this post, I will assume that you are an independent researcher, and that you have a contribution genuinely worth publishing.

You might have used AI to conduct this research. In fact, I hope that you did: many researchers nowadays use AI to boost their productivity (without creating slop... in most cases), so you would likely have no chance to compete against them without the help of a (properly used) AI assistant. If not, simply asking any AI "here is my work, is that new?" would be a good start. The AI will likely point you towards titles of papers that are most like your work. I will assume that you read all of them, and understood them. I'll also assume you followed up on the papers that these papers cite, triaged them to figure out which ones are relevant, and read them. And so on. I will assume that your paper has a proper "Related Works" section where you don't just cite these papers, but explain why your work is different.

Next, what you likely don't see is that from a researcher's idea to its publication in a journal, there are a few other types of publications in between. In my field at least, I'll likely have a PhD student or a postdoc in my team present the work (or even just the idea, with very preliminary results) as a poster in a conference; then/or I will submit a work in progress paper to a workshop; then a longer, more complete version to a conference; eventually an even more cleaned up version in a journal. I very rarely think "my work is worth a shot in a journal" from the beginning, and if I waited until it is, most likely another team would have published the same idea in the mean time.

This leads me to what you should do: identify a conference in the field of your research. It will most likely have a poster session, and a few workshops orbiting it. Decide whether to (1) submit a poster (usually that's a 2-page abstract of your research), or (2) submit a paper at the workshop you consider most relevant (paper length may vary from 4 to 10 pages, usually). In both cases, your work will be peer-reviewed. Most posters are accepted if the abstract is clear enough and in scope; there is an understanding that posters are for you to stand in front and say "this is what I'm working on, let's have a chat about it". Acceptance rates for workshops is generally high too (depending on the workshop, I know some with 90% acceptance, and some with under 20% acceptance).

If your work is accepted, register for the conference and fly there (yes, it costs money, that's why researchers write research proposals, so their institution can pay for this. But you are an independent researcher so you will have to finance it yourself. Being an independent researcher will cost you, not bring you money. If you want money, target a pattent, not a research paper). While there, talk to people, make connections, accept criticisms of your work. And watch the talks at the conference, they will show you what to expect for the next step.

If you read this an thought "oh cool, that sounds exciting!" it's a great start. Research is a whole process, not a paper. If however you thought "but I want a paper in a journal!" and the whole thing above sounds tedious, you probably haven't understood what research is.

Edit to add that I’m in a sub field of CS research. Some of the advice above may not nap exactly onto other fields.

Hi everyone, I’m a little confused about an article I’m reviewing for data extraction and was wondering if someone could help clarify this.

The study reports in the abstract and text that 23 female patients (16 with DM^ and 7 with PM*) were included. However, in one of the tables, it shows DM (n=35), and the number of controls also seems to differ from what is reported in the text.

The study is:

Souza FHC, Araújo DB, Silva CA, Miossi R, Abdo CHN, Bonfá E, Shinjo SK. Analysis of sexual function of patients with dermatomyositis and polymyositis through self-administered questionnaires: a cross-sectional study. Rev Bras Reumatol Engl Ed. 2017 Mar-Apr;57(2):134-140. English, Portuguese. doi: 10.1016/j.rbre.2016.11.002. Epub 2016 Dec 5. PMID: 28343618.

Am I missing something about how the participants were categorized, or could this be a discrepancy in the paper?

For data extraction, would you use the numbers reported in the text/abstract or the numbers presented in the table? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

^DM=dermatomyositis, *PM=polymyositis

Hi all, I'm working with an organization that would like to purchase some sort of database or software to house their assessment data. I don't even know what to call this to search on the web, please let me know if you know if this type of thing has a name, or if you know of a specific product/service. The parameters they are looking for are:

- Houses assessment data they collect

- Can pull both individual and aggregate reports

- Can provide scale-level scoring on those reports for domains of assessment items

- Can sort by date/time, baseline versus follow-up status, location, and various other questions in the assessment.

Thank you in advance.

Hello I just passed 12th and I am in dilemma I got integrated physics in a government college and on other hand I also got btech in cse in a mediocre college

Both side people say ther are no job in both areas

I want a high payout job as a women

Pls help me suggesting which path should i take

Hi, I'm wanting to leave my volunteer RA role because my PI has been doing some shady stuff. For example, they told me not to tell the main organization that I volunteer more than the hours listed in the role description + won't let me use the hour tracking platform. I was also told when I joined that I would first focus on a certain topic, which I was really interested in and was actually the main reason I accepted the role. However, I haven't been working on that topic at all.

My PI also doesn't really let me volunteer elsewhere. I slipped up once and accidentally mentioned that I volunteer at a local NPO, and they got a little strict afterward and started saying things like they would let me go from the lab. I want to leave, but I really don't want to leave on a bad note. I just feel like a PI shouldn't be limiting a student's ability to pursue other opportunities, especially outside of the lab. I've also noticed that the old lab members don't work there anymore, which feels a little shady to me and makes me wonder if maybe they left for similar reasons? I'm obviously not sure, but I wanted some advice on how I can leave on a good note without ruining potential future opportunities.

if i need to search too many keywords its taking time any methods so that I can complete it faster in IEEE Xplore?

Hello everyone. I am a beginner researcher, currently working on a meta analysis. I didn't want to rely on AI for finding an answer to this, thus making a post here. If we are pooling some studies in a meta analysis for a particular outcome, and one of the studies uses a non-standard custom scale which the authors developed themselves, what should be done about it?

I'm sorry if this question is dumb, I will appreciate kind answers, thank you so much in advance.

Edit: Medical research, if it's relevant.

I recently came across a discussion about a research project that had collected data without prior IRB/REB approval, and the discussion made me wonder about a slightly different situation. If someone conducts an independent research project without formal IRB/REB review, but does not intend to publish the study academically, would there be ethical concerns with documenting the project on a personal blog for educational purposes? For example, the blog could describe the methodology, ethical considerations, limitations, and lessons learned, without publishing names, identifying information, or individual-level data. The researcher would also be transparent that no formal ethics review was obtained and that any ethics training they completed does not replace formal approval. Would publicly documenting the project itself raise ethical concerns, even if the purpose is simply to reflect on the experience and learn from it?

Hi everyone,

I'm currently exploring research directions for a PhD and would appreciate some advice from people working in coding theory, mathematics, information theory, cryptography or related fields.

My master's project is in coding theory, where I've been studying error-correcting codes, particularly algebraic/group-ring constructions and their connections with quantum error-correcting codes.

I've recently become quite interested in areas such as algebraic coding theory, quantum error-correcting codes, rank-metric codes, algebraic geometry codes, and code-based cryptography.

My main question is- Is coding theory still a good field to enter as a PhD student in 2026?

I'd especially like to know:

- What areas of coding theory currently have promising research directions?

- What career possibilities are there in both academia and industry for someone specializing in coding theory?

- How do you see the field developing over the next 5–10 years?

- Would you recommend specializing in a particular application, such as quantum computing, post-quantum cryptography, or information theory?

I'm still exploring and haven't decided on a specific subfield yet, so I'd really appreciate perspectives from current PhD students, postdocs, or researchers.

Final-year med student at a research-light university in Serbia. I have very little research experience and my university isn't particularly helpful with research opportunities.

I've looked into paid research programmes, LinkedIn opportunities, etc., but I'm wondering how people in a similar situation actually got started without relying on expensive programmes or constantly monitoring LinkedIn.

A few things I'd love advice on:

• How did you find your first research project with no prior experience?
• Did you cold-email professors, residents/registrars, researchers at other universities, etc.?
• Are there good ways to find remote research opportunities?
• Are there specific organisations/platforms/research groups worth joining?
• What types of projects are realistic for a beginner to contribute to?
• How did you learn enough research methodology/statistics to actually be useful?

Also, I'm not comfortable publicly posting my personal email under LinkedIn posts, and I tend to see those opportunities late anyway.

Would especially love to hear from people who were in a similar situation — research-light university + little/no prior research experience.

What actually worked for you?

can i not use statistical test of significance in quantitative research because my water testing is one water sample only after treatment is this still acceptable

So my supervisor gave me a topic about curriculum analysis and he said it's technical which i couldn't grasp.
I read the papers and they implemented content/document analysis. I saw many tables were created comparing syllabi and courses...etc.

so in this research we don't need those analysis part like calculations, tests (T-test, mann-whitney u test..)

Research experts
Please help me out with your great advice

i am currently researching for my upcoming competition. The topic I have selected is fast fashion and consumerism. My research base is indian demographic and trends in India. The overall goal is to present how fast fashion has a bad impact on the climate and creates toxic working conditions by employing needy kids from poor households. My question to people from a research background who will see this post is: Does this topic suit well with the professors and the competition I am taking part in, or does this seem like a futile project