Category: 1. Research
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The role of a literature review in grant proposals
Christmas is coming up, so what’s a professor got to do? Hide from the family and work on grant proposals, naturally. Right now I’m upset about the misunderstanding of the role that literature reviews play in grant proposals (by way of reviewer comments). Reviewing literature is just a general activity, but one that can serve…
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How to not cite related work
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The student, the researcher, and the professor
The student: I can’t access the research paper; it is behind a paywall. The researcher: Fret not, you will find it on sci-hub. The professor: Just ask the author.
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Dear Ph.D. student: Don’t be afraid of prior art
A first step in a one-person research project in a domain new to a researcher (Ph.D. student) is to read-up on related work. This can be daunting, as sometimes it feels like everything has been done already, and there is nothing new to write a dissertation about. Fear not! With enough digging, the opportunities will…
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How to present a theory (as a handbook)
The key output of research is a theory or something supporting the building or validation of a theory. A theory, in turn, is knowlege, for example in the form of a model, that lets us predict the future or create reliable output in some form. Scientists usually publish theories for other scientists to review, in…
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The value of articles with no relevance
I’m listening to Lutz Prechelt’s keynote at the German Software Engineering research community conference. He is talking about how we should not be undertaking research that has no relevance, and he is demonstrating this by presenting research based on ludicruous assumptions (that will never be real, not in this nor another world). Nobody could disagree…