Researchers are continually learning and improving their craft. The thing is we all learn at different rates due to our effort, capabilities, motivation and environment. What interests me is the process of research improvement.
I think that I learnt the hard way. I put in effort and was motivated but my environment was one where there was little research knowledge and few research leaders to learn from and so my progress was relatively slow. I spent months writing research papers and after submitting them to journals I waited eagerly for the reviewers’ comments. The “long wait” followed and when they arrived I would analyse and dissect the comments, revise the paper and start over again submitting it to another journal. As the reviewing process often takes six months or more, years went by pretty quickly.
As I have gained more research experience I look back on this and think how much better (and faster) it could have been. A research mentor for example could have explained what the key characteristics of a good research paper are and explained where my research paper was deficient. A good research mentor could have also explained the importance of developing a network of academics as early as possible and the best ways to go about doing it. In short, a mentor could have saved me years just by spending a few minutes here and there to suggest what I should be working on. This list of benefits from having a good research mentor goes on and on.
A Phd supervisor is a research mentor and I am thankful I had an excellent supervisor. However, a PhD is like an apprenticeship and a mentor is still needed after completion as there is still much to learn about the research process.
Well, such a mentor didn’t exist in my environment and it may be the same for you. Maybe a blog such as this can help in a small way by being a surrogate mentor. I know it will never be the same as a personal mentor but collective thoughts are a way of knowledge sharing. So, what do you wish you had known about research when you first started out?
www.CompletePhD.com
I think that I learnt the hard way. I put in effort and was motivated but my environment was one where there was little research knowledge and few research leaders to learn from and so my progress was relatively slow. I spent months writing research papers and after submitting them to journals I waited eagerly for the reviewers’ comments. The “long wait” followed and when they arrived I would analyse and dissect the comments, revise the paper and start over again submitting it to another journal. As the reviewing process often takes six months or more, years went by pretty quickly.
As I have gained more research experience I look back on this and think how much better (and faster) it could have been. A research mentor for example could have explained what the key characteristics of a good research paper are and explained where my research paper was deficient. A good research mentor could have also explained the importance of developing a network of academics as early as possible and the best ways to go about doing it. In short, a mentor could have saved me years just by spending a few minutes here and there to suggest what I should be working on. This list of benefits from having a good research mentor goes on and on.
A Phd supervisor is a research mentor and I am thankful I had an excellent supervisor. However, a PhD is like an apprenticeship and a mentor is still needed after completion as there is still much to learn about the research process.
Well, such a mentor didn’t exist in my environment and it may be the same for you. Maybe a blog such as this can help in a small way by being a surrogate mentor. I know it will never be the same as a personal mentor but collective thoughts are a way of knowledge sharing. So, what do you wish you had known about research when you first started out?
www.CompletePhD.com
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