These are slides that I use to teach our incoming graduate students how to avoid common troubles that graduate students / researchers experience. It is more for Purdue IE students, but most of the advice could be relevant to many graduate students.

1. Tips for
Researchers
v0.06
Ji Soo Yi
Associate Professor
School of Industrial Engineering
Purdue University
IE 69700
4:30 – 5:20pm 2014-10-07

2. Disclaimer
• This material is largely based on the
presenter’s personal experience, which
may NOT be readily generalizable to
individual circumstances.
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3. Background
• A researcher in HCI / HF since 2003
• The director of the HIVE Lab since 2009
• The instructor of IE 65900 since 2009
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4. Quick Survey
• How many of you have any research
experiences?
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5. Quick Survey
• What are your biggest
difficulties/obstacles/concerns?
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6. Difficulties
• Choosing a Research Topic
• Overwhelming/boring Lit Review
• Tragic Procrastination
• Embarrassing/slow Writing
• Worries about the progress and future
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7. Research Topic
• I don’t know how to come up with my
research topic.
• I don’t know whether my research topic
is good enough.
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8. QnDReview
• Quick and Dirty Review
– Review a series of papers quickly
• 100 papers in 7 hours (Yi, 2014)
– Which paper to read is more important than
How many papers to read.
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Yi, J. S. (2014). QnDReview: Read 100 CHI Papers in 7 Hours. In Proceedings
of the 32nd International Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in
Computing Systems (CHI), Toronto, Canada, April 26-May 1, 2014, 805-814.

9. Reading Seminar
• Find a group of people who share the
similar interests
• 30-minute / day, 1-5 papers / week
• Minimal effort / maximum coverage
• If you are interested in HCI & HF
– 12:30 to 1pm, Wang 4500
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10. Play Outside the Box
• Expose yourself to totally different domains.
– TED.com
– Adjust your new channels: Flipboard (Zite)
– Professionalize Twitter and Facebook
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11. Lit Review
– I feel overwhelmed. I feel that I know
nothing about this topic.
– I keep finding another article to read. It never
ends.
– I am sick of entering citation information and
keeping track of pdf/hard copies.
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12. Arrogant Lit Review
1.QnDReview
2.Read the top 10 papers.
3.Arrogantly write review as if the 10 are
ONLY papers.
- e.g., “I am the first person who investigates
this problem.”
4.Go back to Step 1 (or 2).
WARNING: If the number of iterations is small, you could end up
writing pretty bad literature review. 12

13. Zotero
• Organize your pdf files and citations.
• You can synchronize your collections
with a separate server.
• You can share the paper collection with
your friends and colleagues.
• Don’t print out too many papers.
• Other tools1
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_management_software
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14. Procrastination
• I am too busy with classes. No time for
research.
• I want to finish my lit review by January,
but it’s already April.
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15. Daily TODO
1.Write down TODOs for today.
2.Do them ALL.
3.Go home.
Advice from Dr. Salvendy
•Your TODO should be doable-per-day but
challenging.
•e.g., Finish lit review. (x)
•e.g., Do one arrogant review. (o)
•e.g., Write two lines. (o/x)
•Don’t go home if you don’t finish. ;)
•Don’t be ambitious too much at the
beginning. 15

16. Morning TODO
• Before going to bed, write down the most
important thing to do.
• When you come to office, do it before any
break.
• Smile.
• Do other tasks.
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I still have the issue.

17. May be a Sign
• If you keep procrastinating even after all
the tricks, it may be a sign for you.
• You might need to be more honest about
yourself.
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I still have the issue.

18. Writing
• I (seem to) know everything, but I
cannot start writing.
• I am an international student. English is
a bad language.
• It takes so long time to write something.
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19. Two-Step Writing
1.Write random thoughts.
–Do not judge your thoughts.
–Do not use even the backspace key.
2.Edit your writing.
Don’t mix these steps up. 19

20. First Sentence Writing
1.Write down first sentences of all paragraphs.
2. Revise these sentences very carefully, so that
they reflect the main story clearly.
– e.g., Why is it important? Why do I do this
study? How do I do it?
3.Whenever you have five minutes, finish up
each paragraph.
WARNING: This technique is more
for advanced researchers.
Inexperienced researchers may
experience too many changes as
writing progresses.
Advice from Drs. Yih and Nohadani.
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21. OWL
• Use twice per week.
• Find a good tutor for you and stick to
him/her.
• Teach the tutor your research.
• Keep the corrected papers.
– It will be interesting to see the red marks on
your paper later on.
• Or, hire a private tutor.
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/ 21

22. Worries
• I only have one paper submitted. How
can I find a job after I graduate?
• Am I on the right track? What if my
current research is useless?
• Things aren’t moving, and clock is
ticking. Ah, I don’t know.
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23. Small Wins
• Try to make small wins (e.g., making
your bed), which will give confidence
and will power.
• Don’t make your worries eat yourself.
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24. Networking
• But, I’m quite embarrassed to say hello
to famous guys at a conference.
– Prepare a big research question to be
answered.
– The question will lead you to be connected.
• BTW, I cannot go to a conference, yet.
– Email them, then.
– One hypothesis, “The more famous a guy
is, the quicker his/her response is.”
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25. Acknowledgements
Drs. Salvendy, Uhan, Yih, Nohadani, and
Hunter provided their own tips.
Any Questions?
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