Sunday, September 26, 2010

~ To a Research Rookie

Salam alaikum,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU

so i got this pm from someone somewhere the other day, that went like so;

On 09/14/10 8:14 PM, He wrote:

Hi...
I am a undergrad. fresh mechanical engineer from NUST-PNEC and I've keen interest in R&D but the problem is I don't want to go abroad or join defence organizations due to some personal reasons... I had the following questions in my mind:

1. How can I actively participate in R&D?
2. What is the advantage of writing a research paper?

Thnx in Advance..

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On the fly, i wrote back;

wa alaikum salam warahmatuLLAh brother,

am traveling, hence the delayed response.
its best to start with a salam -- if it ain't a generic statement you've sent to many besides me.
your questions are intriguing & need a detailed response, which i will inshallah, once feasible.
meanwhile, i'll be interested to know those personal reasons that hinder you from joining defense orgz back home.

wa'salam
- bother the brevity, courtesy of my doodad..err..iphone.
--------------------

I received yet another swift one this time;

5:33 AM, He wrote:

Asalam-o-Aliekm,

Jazakallah for correcting me... Well, I contacted professionals already in this field and i found that u were one of them... :)

I can wait for ur response.. but pls reply as soon as possible.

About defense, I ve seen some results like Dr. AQ Khan, therefore i feel uncomfortable.

Wsa'lam
--------------------

So yeah, once in shape i had to reply, which went like so;


Wa alaikum salam warahmatuLLAh,

wa iyyak, & here is the detailed reply i promised earlier on;

There are several ways of participating in R&D.
But prior to pointing em all, you first need to evaluate yourself, your skill-set and aptitude / interests to figure out if you are:

a) a theoretical guy
b) a practical guy
c) or both.

If you love to read n understand equations working behind a system, without giving a bunny's bum to the reality of the system / you are clueless about the where abouts of stuff in a car engine / never messed up with your computer hardware and OS for the fear of it -- then you should go into theoretical research.

If equations give you creeps and you love to destroy and fix things -- then you should be doing experimental research.

If you are jack of all -- then you are one great resource for this country.

Next you need to evaluate:
what are you interested in?
Solar energy / wind turbines / engineering design / structures / control systems, ... the list goes on & ever.
The best way is to shortlist the areas.

Finally, you need to see if you've acquired enough to carryout research in your area of interest. You need to either join a group already working in the area (in a university or a company), or find people / professionals / classmates interested in the same topic.

Now, in order to share your idea with other people for them to understand your thoughts, you need to write it down.

For that, first you need to jot down quite briefly what do you want to achieve?
what approach you will take?
and what do you expect?
this should be the first para and will be the abstract of the document.

Next, you need to write the introduction section, which will provide the motivation behind the idea ;
- why is this idea important? whats the need?
if anyone else has already worked on the idea, then;
- what did they do? and what are the shortcomings of their work if any?
& then your own approach in simplest words;
- whats soo new about it? and what are its advantages?

You'll then provide your method of tackling the problem, and give a prediction about its performance.

The most important thing is clarity of the document, i.e., when given to different people, each gets the same picture of your approach. Now thats not easy! (but not impossible either)

Why to go through so much pain?
So that, others can understand your idea, your approach and help you improve your idea. Someone can tell you its already thought about, giving you critical feedback; your approach lacks this and that. Someone could just suggest other possible approaches etc.
This will give you an idea if your idea is worth it or not.

Once the groundwork for your research has been laid down, you can carry it out, be it derivations, or making a system, or both.

Last but not the least, you need to tell the world what you did. This will require you to write a research paper, which will target a wider audience, and will provide more diverse feedback and thus your research will continue to improve on...inshAllah.

hth..
n good luck!
---
by the by, some suggested reads;
~ tips for technical paper
~ how to have a bad carrier in research

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