We are what we repeatedly do.Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

– Aristotle

I recently stumbled into a blog maintained by Michael Nielson, an Australian physicist. In his blog, he recounted his experience on physics research and outlined some essential skills and principles for research (for your convenience, I also posted Nielson’s essay in my blog).I would like to recommend this fascinating piece to anybody who is seriously considering research as his/her career. In addition, to remind myself and to extend his thesis to the field of social science, I composed some notes as follows.

Any researcher should possess two sets of essential research skills. The first set is professional skills such as “public speaking, writing technical prose, and networking.”This is particularly pertinent to social science reseachers, for the whole field is completely built on these skills. Unfortunately, many foreign students find these skills insurmountably difficult to overcome.

The second is technical skills such as “finding and solving good research problems, and determining what constitutes a research result.”For social scientists, these skills refer to capabilities of understanding statistics and interpreting results correctly, reading papers critically, and generating important questions from seemingly trivial topics. Most students are well equipped with methodological skills after several years of PhD study.However, finding relevant research problems (especially important ones) requires lifetime learning by actively involving research projects. In fact, naïve junior researchers (including myself) often stuck in irrelevant questions, thus failing to recognize the important ones.The main characteristic of all keen researchers is able to find worthy topics to work on.See the forest, not the trees.

Mastering these skills and achieving significant success require some principles. However, Nielson’s principles seem too morally lofty.Hence, I have furnished his principles with my thoughts, thus more social science oriented.

The fundamental principle is to integrate research into your rest of life.My suggestion is that you should communicate with your family and win their support for your work.Make sure they understand that scientific research is not easy and demands your full commitment. Share every bit of career success with your family and be open to share family responsibilities if necessary.Unfortunately, faculties have much higher divorce rate than the general American.

Another important principle is to build good personal characteristics including “proactivity, vision, and discipline.” These are not much different from other good habits of successful people (see seven habits of highly successful people by Steven Covey).However, personal behaviors are extremely difficult to change.I am not sure how one can become proactive or disciplined after many years of sloppy life.The witty Benjamin Franklin’s successful life suggests that the vision and perseverance are more important. With a vision in mind and sticking to it, you are likely to develop proactive and disciplined attitudes.

The next series of principles are more technical and thus intertwined with essential research skill development.However, due to uniqueness of social science, most following discussions are more about my own beliefs rather than Nielson’s tenets.

Self-development is critical in successful research.With a vision in mind, you have to acquire specific knowledge and skills along your research career. All successful researchers specialize in some areas.However, during the process of self-development, you should keep your eyes open all the time. In social science, there is no earthshaking research that requires years of thinking.If the topic is out of fashion, the topic is dead. There is no need to revive it. Therefore, specializing yourself a little broader helps. In fact, most social scientists seem to know everything relevant to their own research.A broad knowledge together with a focused area is the best strategy in social science.

The next principle is about critical research.Creativity is desirable in any fields.However, as I said before, social research is not a science full of ingenuous discoveries. Numerous studies merely provide evidence to support or refute some seemingly self-evident things. Creativity in social science is represented as different ways of presenting results, thoughtful interpretations, and important questions. In particular, problem-creators, those who can generate interesting questions, are more adapted in social science research than problem-solvers.I agree that ideas are cheap but I think good ideas are priceless.Most social scientists are good at writing grants about important questions but easy (or not-so-easy) to solve, although the final results are sometimes trivial.

Furthermore, for most social scientists, there is only remote possibility to win any grand prize such as the Nobel Prize. In many areas, there is no prize at all. Therefore, to reward yourself and keep yourself motivated, you should actively involve in writing papers as many as possible. A chilling fact I hate to say is that most papers are junk papers, even those written by Nobel Prize winners.Because of the constant change of fashion in social science, even if you do write a good one but not about a hot topic, it looks like and indeed is junk.So don’t worry too much about wasting papers.Doing more means doing better. Keep this in your heart.

Here are some further notes about how to stay ahead in scientific knowledge. I agree with Nielson that one should gloss over all relevant research reports but study only a few. Information is exploding at a speed faster than ever.For example, Nature, Science, JAMA, and NEJM are published weekly.However, in social science, most reports are trivial and only important in certain ways. A glance over their abstracts is enough.Instead, one should know who are the major players and reports from which studies are worth reading. Carefully studying ten papers in any specific topic will get you ready to start research in that topic.

In terms of reading papers, some people tend to focus on the results rather than methods and discussion. On the other hand, I think methods and discussion are more important than results, as most reports are stealthy in hiding truth. Furthermore, by following the same methods, you can write your own papers using your own datasets to argue the same question differently or to unearth the hidden truth. Research by copying is the secret of many successful researchers (I learned this only after I changed boss). In fact, scientific advancement is built on small steps.Big jumps are rare and most people may not be able to live long enough to witness it.

There are many more principles and tips in Nielson’s post such as how to find and tackle important and difficult problems. However, in social science, nothing is important, or everything is important if it is a hot topic. You just need to do it. However, to do it, you should develop abilities to express your ideas clearly (e.g. writing and presenting), and a well-maintained network. That’s the only key to success.

Doing research is like having sex.First, it seems fascinating. But later you discover that it is not that mysterious and inspiring.Hence, you have to make it your habit to maintain your interest in that.

You may not agree with me.But please feel free leave your comments.