What is Something You Wish You Could Have Told Yourself at the Beginning of Your PhD?
Letter Twenty-Nine: Dear Baby PhD Student
And the better relationship that stressed out, tired, brain-fried you can have with past you with all the excitement and good ideas and time on their hands who was certain you’d know exactly what they meant with this small piece of info, the better the end of the PhD experience will be.
How Do I Get Better at Research?
Letter Twenty-Five: Dear Color Me Confused,
When I first felt overwhelmed by the idea of research myself, I went to words. Specifically, to find a definition. Because sometimes you have to break things down into the smallest units you can and make sense in the rebuilding.
Research, in verb form, is to investigate systematically. Systematically is defined as according to a fixed plan or system; methodically. Methodically means in an orderly or systematic manner.
What reassured me at the time was all the objective appearing language of a system and order and fixed plans. Surely then research would be a process that had steps or a pathway or a rubric even. But then I arrived to a place very similar to which you appear to be writing from.