Course: My approach is to demystify the research
process, and to learn how to approach a research proposal and research problem
step by step. We are going to quickly
dig right in, so to do so you will quickly need to settle on a research
question. Some of you already have
it nailed down, some of you have an idea, and some of you have yet to settle on
something. For those of you who have yet
to settle on a question, please quickly visit with your advisor and settle on
one or two ideas you can develop further.
For those that have and want to refine it, please enlist your advisor to
help you with the process. I can help
with this, but I won’t be able to evaluate it’s importance if I’m not familiar
with the field.
The two keys to good
research questions are: Important, and Tractable!
I’ll
start out by having you give a short description of several potential research
questions, select one, and develop it into a proposal. An important part of the class is for you to
give feedback to other students to get feedback from other students and from
your mentor. Along the way, we will also
discuss many other facets of the research process.
1. Generate ideas
2. Select and refine your question,
incorporating what’s known and not
3. Refine what you test and how you will
interpret results
4. Develop a Preliminary Research Plan
5. Get and give feedback
6. Develop a Final Research Plan
This
is the eighth year I’ve taught EY693.
Most of the past students appreciated the structure and the systematic
approach. Dale Lockwood also teaches
another section of EY693, with a different approach – he focuses on proposal
presentation and feedback from the class, but not on proposal development. Both approaches work, and the approach is
your choice.
Mike: I really enjoy doing research, and I consider
myself very lucky to have a career in research!
It is incredible fun to invent the future by posing and answering
interesting research questions. It’s
also led me to many interesting people and places. I’ve been doing research for the past 25
years, and have authored or co-authored about 140 papers, most of them in
refereed journals. My research centers
on understanding how plant ecophysiology controls processes at the ecosystem
level, with a focus on the carbon cycle at the patch scale, and whole tree
physiology. My website has many of my
papers available as pdfs and a description of several of my research
activities. I tend to like experimental
research aimed at testing hypotheses and also collaborative research.
1. I’d like to make sure that the course will
meet your needs. To help me do so, could
you please email us at least five things you most want to learn about doing
research, or have the most uncertainty about?
More than five is fine. We’ll
collate these and distribute them to the class next week, and share any that
came up in the last two years that you didn’t have.
2.
I’d like to get you started right away thinking about research problems. Pick at least two research questions that
interest you, and write a short paragraph about each that explains the
background, why its important, and how it might be answered (1-2 sentences for
each point). If you have already done a
research proposal for your thesis research, we suggest picking something you
might wish to explore further and perhaps eventually write a grant to do. Please visit with your advisor or mentor to
go over questions if you haven’t yet settled on one.
3.
Please write a short paragraph of introduction:
Name, background, degree (MS or
PhD), advisor, general area will you be researching. Also a sentence or two on your research
experience and at what point are you in your thesis research, and how you
became interested in learning how to do research.
4. Read Ford
1-3.
Please
email them to us (mgryan@fs.fed.us) by Friday, January
27, 12pm (noon).
Ford,
Chapters 1-3 handout will be used for the next two classes.