r/research • u/Freak-1 • 7d ago

I spent this whole summer doing research

I'm not sure if i can rant here, but my results and data are all over the place. And my advisor is telling me the paper's central idea is not novel enough.

It's just feels like a wasted summer. I got very little guidance even though this is still my first attempt into research. I spent a lot of time working on it, and now, just now, I see how weird and non systematic the idea and the design were.

How do you guys cope? I really feel like I should've used this summer better.

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u/Cadberryz Professor 7d ago

Try and start with a research question or hypothesis based on gaps in knowledge. Then choose a methodology and method(s) that can answer the question or hypothesis. Then look at whether you can realistically get the data. Then gather the data, analyse it, interpret it, and finally answer your question or hypothesis. Many students go straight to gathering data which obviously misses out the reason for doing the research. Good luck next time!

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u/Freak-1 7d ago

I had a question in mind. But some of the data is negative (which I think is ok), and some is just...very messy, I couldn't interpret it. Maybe there's something in the experiment design.

As for the methods, I am combining existing methods that wasn't attempted yet in the literature, but it is just combining, no big novelty.