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The importance of a productive routine
Maintaining a sense of direction: roles in which researchers need to operate
Keeping records of on-going work
Finding out where your time goes
Using time efficiently when supervisions and seminars are cancelled
Matching the task to the time slot
Handling interruptions
Coping with information overload
Managing time at home with partners and family
Managing time at the computer and on the Internet
Attending training
Using research seminars
Networking and serendipity
Keeping ‘office hours’ versus using the ‘psychological moment’
Keeping ‘office hours’ versus keeping going for hours at a time
Matching your approach to your preferred learning style
Using music to manage yourself
Directing your research to suit your personal needs and preferences
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle
Being realistic with yourself
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There are four main roles in which research students need to operate, and they are presented below roughly in the order in which research students need to occupy them. There will, however, inevitably be a certain amount of to-ing and fro-ing between them and cycling around
them.
- An explorer to discover a gap in knowledge around which to form the research problem or problems
(or questions etc.). (Students may of course be using a different terminology, e.g. ‘research questions’, ‘hypothesis’, ‘focus’, ‘topic’. However, no-one should be gathering data for the sake of it, so research students should always be able to couch what they are doing in terms of a problem to solve, even if different terminology appears in the thesis.) For those students who know their research problems from the outset, the time spent in this role can be very short, although not non-existent because the problem still needs some refinement. Other students can spent a considerable time in the role. Most of the time this is likely to involve reading round the subject, but research can be such a variable undertaking, that students may to drop into the role at any stage.
- A detective and/or inventor to find solution(s) to the research
problem(s) (or questions etc.). The role is that of a detective where the problem is about something unknown and an inventor where the problem is to develop or produce something.
- A visionary or creative thinker to develop an original twist or perspective on the work and a fall-back strategy if things don’t go according to plan. Also, if necessary, to find a way of ring-fencing nebulous or discrete investigations into a self-contained piece of work appropriate for the award concerned.
- A barrister to make a case in the thesis for the solutions to the research problem,
problems or questions (rephrased if necessary in terms of terminology appropriate for the work and field of study.)
Research students may, of course, occupy other roles at times, such as firefighter, manager, negotiator, editor, journalist, etc., but these reflect the sorts of task which everyone, research student or not, has to handle on occasions, and do not generate any sense of overall direction in the research.
... Also of course it is essential to take time off for relaxation
and creativity as considered in Chapter 20.
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