<p>I'm just starting out in research, participating in summer undergrad research program. It's said that there are two types of students who just start out in research: the type that needs to be told to read the literature, how to troubleshoot their experiments, or what the next question is and the type that doesn't need to be told these. Unfortunately I'm the former type, and I'm curious as to what I should do to become the second type.
(Sorry if this is a weird question.)</p>
<p>I think everybody will start out like this when they first do research. You are still an undergraduate and undergraduates aren’t expected to be THAT well-trained to be completely independent (although there are the usual exceptions). Spend a year or two doing more research and you should really see a positive difference in your efficiency in the lab and overall independence. But then again, the point of graduate school is to train you to think, and therefore have the intuition, of a scientist, but it definitely won’t hurt to start training now.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I completely answered your question. Good luck!</p>
<p>Oh, and for someone new to research, I would HIGHLY recommend reading “At The Bench: A Laboratory Navigator” by Kathy Barker. It’s about 30 bucks off Amazon.</p>
<p>Agreed.
I’ve been doing research as an undergrad for about a year now and i’m still not really independent. Still, there’s certainly been a huge improvement with my understanding of the major techniques in the lab, and i’ve become more comfortable with the material as i’ve read more papers and seen more lectures. My advice would be to pay close attention to how your PI/mentor organizes the experiment you’re working on- ask why you’re doing the next step, what will it accomplish? Make sure you’re not blindly following instructions. </p>
<p>As for the literature, even if you can’t find it on your own, you should be interested enough to ask for papers to read. Your lab should have plenty sitting around.</p>
<p>To get better at understanding how to do research, you just need to do more of it. Ask “Why?” to everything, including established knowledge. One of the research groups I was in required that everyone give a full “lesson” on the science behind what they were working on. It sounds like a simple task at first, but when you start to prepare for your presentation, you’d realize how many things you were taking for granted from what books say, and how difficult it can really be to connect all the different ideas that go into making a coherent theory.</p>
<p>Also, if we’re handing out book recommendations, I have to recommend “In at the Beginnings: A Physicist’s Life” [Amazon.com:</a> In at the Beginnings: A Physicist’s Life: Philip M. Morse: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/at-Beginnings-Physicists-Life/dp/0262131242/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213400245&sr=1-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/at-Beginnings-Physicists-Life/dp/0262131242/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213400245&sr=1-1) It’s a wonderfully written autobiography by Philip Morse, author of a ton of higher-level physics textbooks and pretty brilliant guy. His career spanned from doing lab grunt work at a local university (Case before coming Case-Western), moving up to graduate work, becoming a professor, and eventually working in large government programs to further science (including radar in WWII, supercomputers, and what would eventually become the internet later in his career). It’s a really quick read, and his skill in writing really makes me believe his claim to have read 4-5 books every week of his life.</p>
<p>This may sound obvious, but I think one of the big keys is learning to stop doubting yourself. It helps if your program promotes the idea that students doing research (especially at the graduate level, but even to an extent at the undergraduate) are more colleagues then students per se. I know when I was first starting out I would often stifle ideas or questions that I had because I was afraid of sounding stupid. The more you start to trust yourself the more you just might realize you actually had that “intuition” all along. I am still learning that myself, to be honest…I just went to a seminar where I had an idea about the speaker’s research that I was afraid to say since it really was not even my field. Later, at the bar, I got the courage to bring it up and it turns out it was something he had not really thought about and we ended up talking about how he could do that experiment and now it is something he is going to look into.</p>
<p>I guess what I am trying to say is it may not really be true that you lack the “intuition of s scientist”, you may just lack the experience and confidence to trust that you actually have had it all along.</p>
<p>This is a great thread. It would be nice to hear more opinions.</p>
<p>i have to agree.. this is very encouraging to those of us struggling to understand the whys and hows of starting off in research</p>
<p>Honestly, there is no true second type. If you aren’t communicating with your colleagues, you are failing and wasting hundreds of man-hours. Many of the experiments you run are nothing like the rigid, time-tested 5-hour protocols you have from lab classes. Even when the reagents you use come with detailed instructions, you need to collaborate with people in your lab (and outside) who have done certain assays to find out what works. </p>
<p>Troubleshooting small issues yourself is a great asset, but social skills and a willingness to get taught are even more important. At the very beginning, you can actually stand to benefit tremendously from being micromanaged.</p>
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<p>Whoever said that is living in a dreamworld.</p>
<p>Everyone starts out as a beginner. Nobody is born knowing how to do research.</p>
<p>The way to improve, though, is through practice, and through watching and learning from more experienced researchers. Think of it as an apprenticeship.</p>
<p>The whole goal behind research is learn about something that is relatively unknown to you or your field. So if you think about research from that angle, you will always have to ask questions or rely on others to help complete your work. That’s the goal. I think the best researchers are those that can loose their ego and really allow their self to take input and criticism from all relevant people, no matter their education level or expertise.</p>
<p>I’ve just started my first research experience outside of undergrad. My mentor constantly asks me about things that she doesn’t know or hasn’t had the time/coursework to research and fully understand. Her background is in mathematics and programming, while mine is in biochemistry, though her research is bioinformatics or computational biology. So there’s nothing wrong with asking questions and working closely with your mentor/PI. Research is a very collaborative effort. How many peer-reviewed scientific journal articles have you read that were written by only one author??? Probably not many, unless they were review articles or letters.</p>