Created: January 09, 2021
Modified: January 09, 2021
Modified: January 09, 2021
heuristics for research taste
This page is from my personal notes, and has not been specifically reviewed for public consumption. It might be incomplete, wrong, outdated, or stupid. Caveat lector.- Pretend that some other group has published the paper you're imagining: are you excited to read it?
- Write down ten ideas and ask a mentor to rank them 1-10. Compare your rankings to their and discuss.
- Hamming's question: what are the most important problems in your field, and why aren't you working on them?
- It matters a lot what the people around you are interested in, because you need collaborators. conspiracy is a thing for a reason. You shouldn't work on things you aren't excited about, but if you can find a way to get excited about what your colleagues are excited about (or to get them excited about an idea of yours), that's hugely valuable. If this happens rarely or never, consider finding new colleagues by moving to a new research group or institution. This is easier said than done, but the consequences of not doing it can be more significant than the consequences of doing it.