From Confusion to Clarity: The Researcher's First Steps

The only words a researcher is familiar with in the world of research is “where to start”? It is the question that leaves the researcher with two choices :? dive into the mind-boggling world of research to find something new and enticing or simply? give up.

If the researcher chooses to dive in, the first step is to identify the area of interest .

Once that settled ,researcher moves on exploring it, digging deeper? until he finds a specific research problem worth investigating. Lets take an example-a fresh chemistry researcher decides to work on pollution reduction .But? there is not a single type of pollution; branching into? water pollution ,land pollution ,air pollution and more. Within this vast world of pollution the chemist opts for air pollution .

Here comes another challenge—air pollution isn’t caused by just one culprit but by countless pollutants. So, the next step is to enlist the major ones: NOx, SOx, COx, VOCs, and many others. After listing them down, the final phase begins—a detailed literature review on each pollutant, comparing data to determine which one is the most feasible to work on based on budget constraints and available lab facilities.

It is a period of extensive exploration which takes around two to three months.It is daunting, exhausting and frustrating ,however, an incredible opportunity to develop research skills ,critical thinking, writing proficiency ,time management, and above all patience.