Hi Panagiotis,

Thank you for the question. Think different researchers / scholars might have different / unique ways how they plan for their research. For me, I have the following habits:

1) I have a Word doc Tracking all the Interested Research Topics - within a topic, at least I will pen down the research area, research gap, research problem, research value / knowledge contribution & next steps / what to-do-list e.g. what literature review need to do, who are the SMEs I need to talk to, get extra info & expert input from RG etc.

2) Perform Literature Review on Research Topic from Multiple Journals & PhD Theses via subscribing a university's eLibrary (sometimes also include the review of key books) - search & review until repetition / saturation

3) Perform Literature Review on the Research Topic from Internet / Google Scholar search until saturation

4) I have an Excel tracking the Literature Review that I'd done e.g. softcopy article filename, title, author(s), issues addressed, problem statement, methodological philosophy, research method, findings, limitations & future research – these literature serve as the contents of my article

5) If I have Several Research Topics at a Time, I will Prioritize the Research Topics I need to do first, second, third etc. & allocate times needed for each topic.

6) Draft the Research Article Skeleton – which includes sections like Introduction / background, literature review, conceptual framework / research model, research method & hypotheses (normally in diagram & points form i.e. not in full English sentences)

7) Perform Data Collection – determine population, random sampling, design & develop data collection instrument, pilot test & actual data collection

8) Conduct Data Analysis – using the right statistical tools / tests to generate the analysis outcomes.  Sometimes the analysis outcomes prompted me to re-visit literature review i.e. above #2-#4

9) Fill up the Flesh of the Article – include those earlier sections of the article skeleton in #6 and include actual findings, discussions, conclusions, limitations & future research.  This task sometimes take quite a number of rounds like layers of paint coating for improvement.

10) Market the Article – this can be very tedious task i.e. to find journals / publishers to accept my article which include formatting the article (including references) into different formats requested by the journals / publishers.  Then make several rounds of changes based on the critiques from reviewers / editors etc. until it is accepted.  Sometimes need to opt for different journals / publishers when the previous one rejected the article.  Most of my articles are published for free except conference proceedings I need to pay & present.

Some of my articles can be found in the following RG link:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Han_Ping_Fung/contributions

Regards,

Fung

The process on which which journal papers are based is also a good practical process:

1.  Study the literature in your field and identify an area that seems to be lacking (and one that interests you).  Develop research questions 

2.  Determine how to address the questions, such as research with quantitative and/or qualitative data collection.  

3. Create a specific data collection and analysis methodology that will address your  research questions.

4. Budget your time so that you can do the study, the analysis, and the writing.

I have for years kept a register of ideas for research, which I call my big book of unproven theories. Something will pop into my head as a potential research topic- I will as soon as practicable make notes on the idea including outlining the idea, what I know about the topic, how I would approach studying it and what it would mean if I could answer the question.

It is a page or two per idea, so not extensive. I find it helpful in ruling out ideas that aren't feasible, providing a blueprint for ideas that are, and ensuring there is a relevance to ideas before they progress.

You are asking two quite different questions: 1) how do you decide on new work? and 2) how do you decide on a journal? In relation to (2) the comments above are all very sensible answers, but there is a "context of justification" and a "context of discovery" in most  work. Personally, I find that ideas for new writing just "pop into my head" sometimes. I'll be working on X and then an idea for a paper on X-prime will occur to me and off I go! A historic example: Roslind Franklin and Watson and Crick were all working on DNA: Franklin was trying to justify her assumptions and doing lots of experiments to do so; Watson was famously said to have the idea of the structure of DNA "pop into his head". (I am not comparing myself to these luminaries!)

As far as your "Etc." is concerned, you also need to plan the resources you need. But this depends on your research question and on your required data ... (!)

1. review the literature in your filed/specialty and look for research questions

2. Discuss the questions with your collegues or present it in the research group, this makes the research idea

3. review the literature again and this time on detail

4. examine your questions and the aim you have and the material you might use

5. make a research timetable, a good plan and write a proposal

6.  now lets go, many ideas will come into your mind while doing it...

7. keep yourself updated and everimproved during your research time

Dear all,

First of all, I would like to thank each one of you for participating in this discussion.

It is clear from most answers that the basic research process can be divided into several well defined steps. This is the process chain that I have in my mind and follow as well.

Regarding the definition of a research topic, I would like to further discuss about the way you select what your next research subject would be, from a series of research ideas that you have. What are the key criteria that drive your decision?

For example, some criteria that come in my mind are the following:

At the moment decisions are made depending on whther it is research within my PhD or outside it. At the moment I'm doing both.

I think the key criteria for me are:

Once I commit to the idea, the 'how' is a vastly secondary consideration.

I would research topics of interest or gaps in the field of literature related to your topic. There are thousands of dissertations and research studies that need further attention. Find the gap and get started, because it will take a number of years and consume your thoughts related to the topic. The research has to be something that drives you each day, exploring the topic for additional study. Plan your work and work your plan. 

Hi Panagiotis,

Thank you for the question. Think different researchers / scholars might have different / unique ways how they plan for their research. For me, I have the following habits:

1) I have a Word doc Tracking all the Interested Research Topics - within a topic, at least I will pen down the research area, research gap, research problem, research value / knowledge contribution & next steps / what to-do-list e.g. what literature review need to do, who are the SMEs I need to talk to, get extra info & expert input from RG etc.

2) Perform Literature Review on Research Topic from Multiple Journals & PhD Theses via subscribing a university's eLibrary (sometimes also include the review of key books) - search & review until repetition / saturation

3) Perform Literature Review on the Research Topic from Internet / Google Scholar search until saturation

4) I have an Excel tracking the Literature Review that I'd done e.g. softcopy article filename, title, author(s), issues addressed, problem statement, methodological philosophy, research method, findings, limitations & future research – these literature serve as the contents of my article

5) If I have Several Research Topics at a Time, I will Prioritize the Research Topics I need to do first, second, third etc. & allocate times needed for each topic.

6) Draft the Research Article Skeleton – which includes sections like Introduction / background, literature review, conceptual framework / research model, research method & hypotheses (normally in diagram & points form i.e. not in full English sentences)

7) Perform Data Collection – determine population, random sampling, design & develop data collection instrument, pilot test & actual data collection

8) Conduct Data Analysis – using the right statistical tools / tests to generate the analysis outcomes.  Sometimes the analysis outcomes prompted me to re-visit literature review i.e. above #2-#4

9) Fill up the Flesh of the Article – include those earlier sections of the article skeleton in #6 and include actual findings, discussions, conclusions, limitations & future research.  This task sometimes take quite a number of rounds like layers of paint coating for improvement.

10) Market the Article – this can be very tedious task i.e. to find journals / publishers to accept my article which include formatting the article (including references) into different formats requested by the journals / publishers.  Then make several rounds of changes based on the critiques from reviewers / editors etc. until it is accepted.  Sometimes need to opt for different journals / publishers when the previous one rejected the article.  Most of my articles are published for free except conference proceedings I need to pay & present.

Some of my articles can be found in the following RG link:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Han_Ping_Fung/contributions

Regards,

Fung

I have long maintained a daily diary, which I recently searched for research ideas that had not yet come to pass. That went into a second notebook, with a list on the first few pages, an separate pages for jotting issues later on. Some ideas are more complicated or difficult to research. Some turn out to be much less promising on more careful examination. However, I come up with interesting ideas far faster than I can research them to completion. As I had had no grad students in close to a decade, matters advance slowly. At some point you have enough money put away to retire (at least  that's how it is done here) and at that point if you retire you can do research full time.

As time goes by, information that is filtered through the brain from whatever source, you end up keeping it somewhere; it could be a picture (for those with visual memory) or a clipping of an article. Later on some more info on the same or another subject passes through and you keep that too. 

Eventually comes the time to put it all together. Then you need to start working on it.

Over many years all the information that I kept, has miraculously been used up. I guess those were my interests!  Everybody is slightly different, so everyone can research many things without duplicating others.

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.  For every idea, find in the literature what has already been done, which spawn a lot of further ideas.  Develop them and start again from the beginning.  When an idea arises, continue to work on what you are doing, but write it down.

I would start collecting the complete theoretical aspects and the important literature review then I decide the appropriate period of time for executing the practical work. Finally, I begin my research.

Responses colleagues above, interesting scientific answers

Very rich post my colleague Dr. Chalamala, recommended.

Regards, Emad

i agree with you. thank you for all.

lonely wolf or lonely researcher, is not good for yourself and your community..try to form a group, a team or a few good researchers together to have fun and have excitement in research better. I read a lot about mental illness, depression and lost of hope among too lonely researchers and it destroy everything in them... so i think this topic is excellent and we should gather strength and hope from each other in a group...about the topic/LR/thesis/motivation, all not important, except you ~you must be happy and enjoy in the process of learning/searching/researching every second, otherwise, just walk away and enjoy something you love/like/passionate about. God bless your plans/research works.

I am very glad to have found this discussion and very much appreciate the answers above. I wanted to take the discussion to a slightly different direction. As above, I can see most of us are talking about coming up with individual research project ideas; what about if you were to write a personal research plan for the next 5 years? How would that differ from the above?

Many thanks and I look forward to your views,

Ka Yan

Good idea, Ka Yan Hess

Just as sponsored research seems to work in 5 year cycles of funding, it would seem to make sense to plan one's personal research for a 5-year horizon.

Where do you want to be in 5 years time? What do you aim to have completed by then? PhD? Postdoc?

I do not know the experience of others, but for me i wanted to be a public health veterinarian and before I could do that, I became a veterinary Anatomist and then a pathologist. Now I am back in anatomy. Was this fate I do not know but here in Africa you can plan but fate will take you elsewhere