Conduct a project

Metaphorically speaking

Research is the sum and interplay of experiences you encounter when conducting a worthwhile excursion into a topic. It is not just the mechanical act of walking, but your plans, your modes of travel, your thoughts, your impressions, your insights. It is the decisions you made, how you carried them out, and what you unlocked through them.

Consequently, to appreciate and understand research most appropriately, consider it a complex and integrated experience, not just one facet of it (documentation). This recommendation is more critical than it might seem at first glance. Only if you appreciate research in all its facets will you be able to foresee, provide for, and mitigate challenges. Only if you appreciate research holistically will you be able to recognize the interactions between carrying out and documenting a project, between reading literature and phrasing your question, between writing, thinking, and revising—and so on.

Research, once understood as project work that includes many capabilities and ‘trades’, can be managed much more efficiently and effectively than if it is misunderstood as mainly revolving around one task—writing—with all other tasks merely tacked on.

(This is a preview section. The full chapter on this topic continues with the sections “Rough coordinates”, “Train of thought”, “In essence”, “To reflect”, “Two travellers’ tales”, “Devil’s advocate”, and “How to tackle”.)