What is your Research Workflow Like As an Academic?
Summary:
I want to know what is your research work flow like. How you read papers, what you do with them once you have read and how you get ideas for your own papers. I’m doing my ph d in energy engineering. Most of my work is focused on proofs. So we’ll design algarithms and analyze them. ive also had some specialty in the past on proving fundamental impossibility results. so it’s all pen paper Proofs. And sorry for no e mythological reference. Well, i don’t want it to seem like i’m a stickler about the mythological references. Roman references would be fine too. All right, so i can be flexible here. This
Transcript:
Speaker 2
doing my ph d. In energy engineering. I want to thank you for all the good work you are doing on this pot cast and blog and all the books you have written. You talk a lot about general productivity work flow, like capture, can figure control systems. I want to know, what is your research work flow like, how you read papers, what you do with them once you have read and how you get ideas for your own papers. Thanks. And sorry for no e mythological reference. Well,
Speaker 1
i don’t want it to seem like i’m a stickler about the mythological references. Roman references would be fine too. All right, so i can be flexible here.
Speaker 2
This question about my
Speaker 1
my research work flow as an academic. I think it’s a good one, because one point it allows me to emphasize is that, at least in my corner of academia, and i think this is true for lots of areas, finding good topics is really hard, and you spend a lot of time on it. And you should think of it as something that requires a lot of time. Don’t down grade when you conceptualize the academic life, don’t downgrade the amount of effort that goes into finding the problem. I think we think a lot about the work that goes into writing the paper, solving the proof, or getting the experiments go, but figuring out what to write, what to solve, or what to experiment on in the first place, n that’s really non trivial. So i will give a little insight into how i do it. Again, for listeners who don’t know, i’m a theoretical computer scientist. Most of my work is focused on proofs. So we’ll design algarithms and analyze them. Ive also have had some specialty in the past on proving fundamental impossibility results. So no possible algarithm can do better than this in this particular type of context. So it’s all pen paper proofs.
Speaker 2
There are two types of papers
Speaker 1
in my world, i would say. There is
Speaker 2
continuation of
Speaker 1
a research direction already established. Ther’s a ltle bit more obvious, right? Finish a paper in a particular research direction that’s already been established. And you say, what’s the next natural thing to look at in this general area? That’s an easier question to answer, you know, because as you work on something, you learn more techniques. More people cite your work, you read what other people are doing. That inspires ideas for what you should do next. You have a lot of tools to work with. You have a lot of techniques to try to apply. (Time 0:19:47)