<p>I noticed that people have done independent research without help from any help from professors, instructors, etc. What exactly are the steps to conducting independent research? Do you just choose a topic you like and do research on it? Do you have to create a hypothesis or outline of what you are going to do? What exactly do you do while researching? Take notes? Publish a paper?</p>
<p>What exactly are the steps to conducting independent research? Sorry if I'm overwhelming you with too many questions, but I'd really appreciate input from those of you who have done research by themselves or know the necessary steps.</p>
<p>0) Get yourself a notebook with continuous numbers and keep notes daily
from the time you start looking for a topic.</p>
<p>1) Find a topic area; note references, internet material you cosnulted etc
in your notebook.
TYpically may take 1 day to 3 weeks</p>
<p>2) Idenitfy a questionthat appeals to you- write it down in hypothesis format
if blah then blah blah given duh
Typically this may take a week to all your life</p>
<p>3) identify experiments and procedures for solving the question
-extend the hypothesis
Typically this may take a day to two weeks depending on your topic area</p>
<p>4) Now do the experiments
Typically this may take a day to along long time</p>
<p>5) Hopefully you have been documenting everything; analyze your results.
repeat experiments if required; partiucalrly find out where things could
have gone differently;</p>
<p>6) Make conclusions about your hypothesis and come up with
future work based on where you are at.</p>
<p>Keep a teacher at school in the loop while youa ttempt all this
and send in periodic e-mails with updates and maybe slides. At the end
wrote upa report and meet them after school and discuss.</p>