Jeremy and others interested, In March 2010, I developed a list of "Ideas for developing graduate research questions" with the help of colleagues in my UW-Madison China-IGERT program and the Soil Science Department. Some of the ideas may be more appropriate for those interested pure vs. applied research tracks. Here are the ideas we compiled. Others -- please feel free to add to this list:
• Read journal articles (especially review papers) in your area of interest, and by key researchers in your field. Hunt for unanswered questions, competing theories, and suggested research ideas. • Find ways to extend previous research, for example by applying existing methods to new areas or situations. Or plan research that modifies accepted answers to old questions, confirms contested answers to old questions, or challenges accepted answer to old questions. • Talk with other researchers, both within and outside your own field. Chat with faculty and other grad students at informal campus events. Attend classes and lectures that may spark ideas. Attend conferences and meetings to meet potential collaborators. • If you are interested in a particular study area, go there and talk with locals to learn about local issues. • Think about what information is needed for effective management of a particular environmental system or species or landscape of interest to you. • Read books and articles about doing research, such as “The Craft of Research” by Booth et al. and “The importance of stupidity in scientific research” by Schwartz 2009. • Choose research projects that are easy to replicate (i.e. not prohibitively expensive or laborious), so that others can extend or continue your research and then cite you. • Team up with other young collaborators who have most of their career ahead of them, providing opportunities for long-term future collaboration. • Consult lists of research needs in your discipline(s). Sometimes these are generated at workshops/conferences and published. • Listen to media sources (such as the NY Times, The Economist, NPR, BBC, blogs, and the web) to determine emerging issues where science will be part of the policy discussion. • Plan your research around a needed product (map, model, technique, protocol, policy recommendation, etc.) Talk with potential users (policy makers, government agencies, university extension, non-profit agencies, citizen groups, farmers, etc.) to determine specific needs. -- Nina T. Chaopricha Ph.D. Candidate, Environment & Resources T.A. Instructor, Envir St 600: Community-Scale Composting (Spring 2012) Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies University of Wisconsin-Madison
