Speaker 1: Learning to research is a very important skill. Now, it doesn't matter if it's for academia, like a PhD, master's, undergraduate research thesis, or it's just for general life. I've got loads of hobbies, sewing, lock picking. Check out this, I made this on the weekend. I love it, it's got dash owns on it. But all of these things have required me to do some research about how to do things. And in this video, I'm gonna share with you all of the steps I go through, whether or not I'm doing a PhD or learning how to sew a hoodie. All of these things are super valuable. Go through the steps and I assure you, you will know how to research more effectively at the end of this video. This video is sponsored by my newsletter. Go check it out at andrewstapeton.com.au forward slash newsletter. I'll put a link in the description. And when you sign up, you'll get five emails straight away over two weeks about podcasts that I've been on with loads of valuable information, daily planner, tools, how to write an awesome abstract and more, so go sign up and I'll see you over there. Preparing for research on any topic just means you kind of have to just lay the foundations as in what are you actually trying to research? Where are the boundaries of where you want to research? All of these are important because you can research forever. As academics, it's really hard just to stop and go, okay, I've got enough, I'm gonna move on with what I know. We always want more information. So having a well-defined research question or topic is very important. And then you need a place to store your notes, store the things that you find and a little kind of cheeky place where you can put notes on different papers. Now there are plenty of software options out there for you, but just starting simply, just a folder structure on your computer with the topic and then a few sort of blank sort of folders underneath that just are ready for you to start kind of identifying the categories and organizing research as it pops up into certain categories. You won't know it just yet, but as you start to research and you get a sixth sense of all of the things that are involved in this topic, you'll start to be able to go, well, that paper fits here or that bit of information fits here. And having a just running document of notes that sits in the sort of highest level folder is very important. Just sort of like spill out all that information that comes out of your head into the file and it's just a quick scanning file initially. You'll start to get more and more detailed as we go through, but initially it's just about the broad level strokes. The last thing you'll need is a bunch of patience. Researching a topic, you know, the Google, Wikipedia, all of these tools make it incredibly easy to get research and information at your sort of like disposal, but the problem is is that not all research is created equal. So having the patience to go through, turn up your bullshit filter and just try to understand a little bit of whether or not what you're reading is sort of genuine research or it's someone's interpretation of that research. Going to the primary sources will win out every single time. And so just trying to get in the mindset that it's going to take a little bit of time, but your efforts will be rewarded because if you lay the proper foundations of researching a topic, it will accelerate your feedback and your productivity towards the end of your project. Okay, here we go. When you are researching a topic, you start with the broadest possible strokes possible. Now, I'm talking about Wikipedia, Google, those places are just a brilliant place to start because they just give you an ability to get an idea of the sort of information that's out there. Is it mainly academic? Is it opinion pieces? Is it blogs? All of these places will help you kind of understand what the topic has to offer. Now, a place that I like to go through and go to right away is Google Trends. Just head to Google Trends and what that has done for me in the past, it gives me a sense of what the field is doing and the topic is doing over time. And it helps me sort of like calibrate my bullshit barometer because I'm looking at it and I'm going, okay, well, a majority of topics happened in 2009. So if I see something from 2009, I know that that was kind of the peak interest area of this field and therefore, I can expect to see a lot of information around there and then it dies off. But whatever you see just gives you an ability to kind of just understand the field and how it's moved over time. And I find that very, very useful. Another place is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is great because it's always evolving and it tends to have the most up-to-date information, particularly if it's like a hot, moving topic. So solar cells was my PhD background and there was always useful information. People are always updating it and I think that is a really great place to go. Another place, and if this is an academic research question, like if you're doing your PhD, your master's, your undergraduate, Google Scholar. Google Scholar is a really great place to go and I don't see enough people using it, even outside of the research field. If you're writing a blog, if you're trying to understand a business, if you're trying to do some marketing, whatever it is, Google Scholar has got all of this research that you can scan quickly and yeah, sure, it takes you to academic papers, which can be a massive pain in the ass to read, but that is peer-reviewed science and research. So all of that, you can really trust, as long as it's from a reputable journal. And you also get an idea of the patents and the up-to-date information about where the field is and you can sort by date. All of it's very important. So there we are, Google Scholar, Wikipedia, and also Google Search. With Google Search, you have to be a bit careful. I tend to put the topic and then the word science or research, or just to kind of hone in on where journalists have taken a bit of research and now you're looking at the secondary source. You're looking at when a journalist has taken a primary paper or a research finding and they've gone, brilliant, I need to tell the world this, and they've done kind of the hard part, which is translating the research into the real-world language, everyday language for the general audience and the general population. So those are the places I'll start and I'll start collecting information. I'll start putting it into folders that I think kind of make sense as I go along. If I'm not sure, I'll just dump it all into one folder, but having the note document is very important and I will put in questions like, oh, that's interesting, I found this, but where else is there a gap or what questions are popping into my mind as I'm researching? And always referring back to that research question is super important because if a bit of research doesn't match your research question, you can just ignore it. Even if it's a little bit on the edge of the research question, just get rid of it. There's plenty of research out there. There's plenty of information around a topic that it will be related to your research question directly and it just takes a while sometimes to dig through the rubbish to find out exactly where you need to be playing in order to answer and research your topic. If you want to start really strong and accelerate your research into a topic exponentially, I highly recommend that you look for a review paper. A review paper is essentially when someone has done all the work for you, but you do have to be careful. You have to make sure it's relevant and recent, but a lot of these papers exist because in the PhD world, they get a lot of citations and it really helps your career later on. So you can take these review papers and have a look at how they split up the research field. This will give you an idea of the sort of categories that you can break down in your folder structure when you're dragging and dropping papers into it, but a research paper and a review paper, sorry, is incredibly powerful because they have done all the hard work for you. They've pulled in a whole load of research into one paper. They've referenced it all out. These review papers will often have two to 300 references that you can then go, oh, well, that's interesting. I'll go check out the primary source. Checking out the primary source is very important. Never take anyone's word for something until you've read it in the original research paper because people misrepresent stuff all the time. Even my papers, when they get cited, I'm like, that's not what that paper said, but a citation is a citation. So yes, looking for a review paper is very, very powerful and it can give you that ability to kind of then use that as a way to branch off into other papers. So check out your research field or your research topic and type in review paper into Google Scholar with your topic and you may be surprised at what you can find. Researching any topic is actually quite fun in this stage when you're just like grabbing articles and be like, oh, this is good, this looks interesting, but the real hard work comes to when you actually have to read the information and start categorizing it. So go check out my other video. I believe it was my last video about how to read research effectively and quickly. Now, this isn't about scanning the whole page, even if it's a webpage, for example. You know, you don't have to read it or you can Control F and find bits that you think of, you know, use keywords to search in that web article. If you've got something like a research paper, if this is much more academic and you're downloading research papers from a place like SciHub, a lot of people don't agree with SciHub, but it's there nonetheless, it's a tool, you can use it. Go and read the title, the abstract, look at the figures and the figure captions, and that will give you an idea of whether or not you want to invest time in actually reading this paper or this bit of research. If you don't, don't delete it, just use a little folder that's like not yet, like a not yet folder, drag and drop it across, and it'll just kind of tidy up and reduce the amount of murkiness and muddiness as you're going through. So we've been through the massive kind of haul, we've trawled the internet with our big net and we've caught everything we can, and now it's about going through and sorting out, okay, well, this is interesting, this is not, and unfortunately, there's no shortcut, just go through, read title, abstract, figure captions, and then start to sort out, yes, I want to read this more, no, I don't want to read this, and you'll start to kind of get a sixth sense of whether or not something is interesting just from the abstract. And knowing when to stop is actually one of the hardest things. So when you're researching a topic, you've got to this stage, and you're like, I've got all these papers, I'm starting to sort of like formulate my own ideas, I'm starting to find gaps, and you can go back to any stage and just be like, okay, well, I need more information on this certain category or subtopic, okay, I'll go back. But knowing when to stop is probably one of the most important things in this, especially if you're in a sort of like time constraint, like you're doing it for an undergraduate review paper or whatever it is. Always be referring back to that first question, that research topic or question, why are you actually doing this? Have you been able to answer the question with relevant, timely information? Have you been able to formulate your own conclusions or notice any gaps in the research? All of this is going to be important for you to say, okay, I've had enough, and I feel like we always go too far. So if you feel like, I just do a little bit more searching, stop, you've probably got enough. If you're still in a position where you're like, I have no idea what's going on with this research, continue that search, continue that filtering process. But if you feel like, okay, I kind of get this, it's time to start. Normally you're researching for a purpose, so just start on that next step, start on the research, so the physical research in a lab or doing your own unique research if you're doing a PhD or your master's, or if you're formulating an essay, start writing that essay. You'll start to find the smaller gaps and you can always go back through the process to answer questions, but knowing when to stop is super vital because remember, this is a very important part, but normally you're researching for something else. So once you get that inkling you've got enough, move on. So there we have it, that's how I research everything. I guess it starts with a massive, broad overstroke using those kind of tools that we all use no matter what the topic, Wikipedia, Google Scholar, and Google, and then make sure you understand how to search effectively in Google using the search modifiers, and then I collect that all together and then I start sort of reaching out more. So I look for a review paper, I look for research, I look for journalist interpretation of research or some new findings or some new information. I start bringing that all together, always going back to the primary source if possible, and then I start reading it, and reading it effectively, like I said, go check out my other video, that's really important for speeding up this process. Not all the information you find is going to be correct, relevant, or even interesting to your research topic, and then knowing exactly when to stop is going to be your superpower in this. Once you go, okay, I kind of get this, I'm starting to formulate my own ideas or I'm starting to understand how all these moving parts come together, that is when you go, okay, what's the next step, how do I move on, and you have to stop there. Sometimes it doesn't feel right, you know, you can always get more information, but be strict with yourself and move on. If this video has been useful to you, please remember to check out academiainsider.com, that is where I have my ebook, the Ultimate Academic Writing Toolkit, as well as my Insider Academia Forum. So, that is a bunch of people helping each other become better academics and mental health stuff along the way as well. It's a great bunch of people, so go check it out, and I'll see you over there. Until the next video, look after yourself.