To make meaningful discoveries and share them with humanity.
Never shy from the truth, whatever your theory says should be true. Be meticulous in your methods. Read and cite the work of those who came before you and on whose work you can build. Stay focused on your topic and try not to be distracted -- the deeper your knowledge becomes, the more likely you are to be able to make meaningful contributions.
To make meaningful discoveries and share them with humanity.
Never shy from the truth, whatever your theory says should be true. Be meticulous in your methods. Read and cite the work of those who came before you and on whose work you can build. Stay focused on your topic and try not to be distracted -- the deeper your knowledge becomes, the more likely you are to be able to make meaningful contributions.
What constitutes good research and the goals of doing research are defined from within the various communities of scientific practice themselves. In other words, they vary from one location to another, from one historical period to another, and from one discipline to another. For a short illustration, see:
Experience determines the quality of a good researcher. The ultimate goal of a researcher should be to keep discovering new ideas which should add value to the literature. Ultimately, a knowledge contributor.
Depending on the cycle of research a particular researcher follows, research may aim for two independent but complementary goals. Generally speaking, one of the goals of research is to find out whether an already existing hypothesis or theory about a phenomenon is true or false. This type of research is replicatory since the researcher's main objective is to assess the the predicted outcome suggested by other scholars. The second goal of research is to add and contribute to the universal body of knowledge by exploring and theorizing about a specific aspect of a given phenomenon in a particular field of study. By nature, this type of research has an exploratory objective.