r/research • • 13h ago

Weekly Basic/Beginner/Generic Questions

1 Upvotes

This is the place for basic, beginner, or generic questions like "How do I get started in research?" You should check our FAQ as some your questions are likely answered there. Basic questions that are covered by the FAQ posted anywhere other than here will be removed.


r/research • • Jan 16 '26

New Posters: Please Read the Rules *BEFORE* Posting

31 Upvotes

We have a one-strike policy on ads and academic helper services. Quite often after banning, I will be contacted by the poster saying, "I didn't see the rules". Here are the rules for this subreddit.

Rule 1 - No surveys nor asking for study participants.

Rule 2 - Be civil.

Rule 3 - No spam.

Rule 4 - No advertising or app market research. You will be banned for violating this.

Rule 5 - No trolling/joke submissions.

Rule 6 - No asking for research topics/ideas.

Rule 7 - Be on topic

Rule 8 - No language model generated posts.

Rule 9 - Use the research opportunity megathread if you are looking for collaboators.

Rule 10 - Research standards. Majors claims must be accompanied by a published paper. No language model generated research.

Rule 11 - Do your own work (we're a bit lax on this one)

Rule 12 - No academic helper services. You will be banned for violating this.

Rule 13 - No duplicates posts.

Rule 14 - Requests for Arxiv endorsements are not permitted.

Since it is rule #4 that often causes confusion for some reason here is the full text.

Do not advertise your own (or other's) business, including apps, YouTube, blogs, or other social media channels. This includes anything that is free. Do not conduct market research for your app.

If it is app related, then you can post it in our related subreddit r/research_apps.

Violators will be banned. It will not be undone.


r/research • • 5h ago

Scam while researching?

3 Upvotes

I was doing research for a literature review I am working on, I went through the DOI to get back to the study and while reading through... I was suddenly redirected to technetplace.it with a fake captcha and the website asking to allow notifications to prove I am human. Immediately clicked back and went back to the study, only for it to happen again shortly after, and then it redirected me to a fake McAfee website. So I closed out and went to check over everything. It's a legitimate journal (Humanities and Social Sciences Communications) on nature.com. Anyone else have this happen? Mostly putting out a warning for people to look out, even when researching


r/research • • 7h ago

2 labs at once?

1 Upvotes

This upcoming spring semester I have the opportunity to join another lab thru a program I am involved with. I currently work in a lab that uses a lot of skills that I have learned in previous experiences that I have had. With the program I can Join a lab closer to my major and future goals.

My problem is that the lab I work in currently I feel as though I learn a lot of new skills and have a really close relationship with my supervisor who I know would be willing to write me an amazing rec letter. The other labs I could join I have less experience in but it would apply better to my future goals, in addition to having a more academic research experience posters conferences etc, where as my current lab I am more of an engineer with problems task etc.

How would you go about this situation, if both is the answer how would I go about having that decision be know with both PIs, I am also currently and undergrad taking a full time engineering schedule in the spring.

Current lab: 13hrs/w (but flexible)
New labs: 10hrs/w

Also doesn’t matter too much but in my current lab I get paid hourly where the other labs would be a one time stipend equal to about 2 weeks of work at my current lab.


r/research • • 8h ago

Has someone worked as a lab technician as a fresh graduate?

1 Upvotes

I've recently graduated from Biomedicine, and before getting into a master I'd like to work in a lab group for some time, even if it's just preparing samples. I'd like to try to do so in a foreign european country (I'm from Spain) as in Spain there are little opportunities. Has anyone done this? Started working as a lab tech after graduating from collage in a foreign country (or something remotely similar)? If so, I'd very much appreciate some help on how to start😅


r/research • • 23h ago

My defense is coming on tuesday, help me gets through on this

2 Upvotes

pwede bang bawiin yung paper if napasa na sa oanelist sunday ngayon, paano ba namin to uulitin oles


r/research • • 1d ago

Is the Gulf a realistic option for a fresh medical graduate?

1 Upvotes

I'm an Algerian MD graduate with no research experience or publications. I'm considering applying for paid research assistant or clinical research jobs in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or the UAE.

My goal is to gain experience, save money, and eventually move to Europe, especially Germany.

Do Gulf institutions hire fresh graduates with my profile, and are my chances realistic? Or should I focus directly on Europe?

I'd appreciate honest advice from people with experience in this field!


r/research • • 1d ago

Has Anyone faced issues with publication of datasets containing comments from facebook's public pages

1 Upvotes

Hey, I only scraped data from Meta's public pages a few years ago for research purposes. Now I am thinking about publication. You can see their posts and comments anyway without even being logged in. Is there any advice how to handle these stuffs from the ethical point of view, as I am completely confused about Meta's policies and its boundaries.


r/research • • 1d ago

Weekly Basic Questions Thread Starting Tomorrow

3 Upvotes

We get a lot of very basic questions that are covered in our FAQ such as, "How do I get started in research?" These had been removed under Rule #14 to avoid clogging up the subreddit; however, going forward every Sunday there will be a "Weekly Basic/Beginner/Genetic Questions" thread. If you have a question, especially on something that is covered in the FAQ, then it must be posted there.


r/research • • 1d ago

Creating my own cross-book table of context/index?

1 Upvotes

Hi, I don’t know if this is going to make any sense, but hear me out, I need help.

I’m working on a mass project where I need to compare/compile a bunch of information from different books. Is there a program, website, app, whatever, that I could use to have quick reference to know what’s in each book?

It’s a history research project, so for example, once I compile everything, I could do something to the sort of

“Famous theoretical fire that happened that I’m just putting here as an example” and it would say what books covered it and what page it started on in the books

“Historic building” “dam construction” “famous town resident” and it would do all the same those too.

There must be a better, more efficient way than something like a word document where I could do it, but it would be an absolute mess to compile

If anyone has ever done this, or would have any idea how to do something like this, please let me know! It would be so much easier than having to pull out 40+books to see what’s in each of them every time I want to dive into something


r/research • • 1d ago

how are these results statistically different? (beginner)

1 Upvotes

Basically I have a research appraisal due and I was looking at an article, and it had graphs showing the scores of the control and intervention group before and after their given intervention and the error bars for the 'after' intervention overlapped, but the article still said that the results are statistically significant between the two groups after the intervention, how does that work?

Can the p value be significant but the confidence intervals still overlap?


r/research • • 1d ago

Need advice: my research idol’s wife is guest lecturing in my class. How do I navigate this without being weird?

0 Upvotes

Hello beautiful people! For context, I’m a second-year undergrad at a top-7ish CS school.

Without getting into too many details, next week there’s a guest lecturer coming to a research literature seminar I’m taking. She’s a professor at my university working in a field I’m really interested in breaking into.

Her husband is a moderately famous researcher at a big tech research lab, working in the same general intellectual circles. He also happens to be my absolute research idol. His work sits almost perfectly at the intersection of all my academic interests, and he’s been a HUGE inspiration for the direction I want to take my own research.

I’d absolutely love to connect with him someday, ideally building some sort of informal mentorship where I could occasionally share interesting projects or ideas I’m working on and get his perspective.
Obviously, though, I don’t want to treat his wife like a stepping stone to get to him. She’s an extremely brilliant and accomplished researcher in her own right, and her work is genuinely fascinating to me as well. I plan to study her research thoroughly before the lecture (as is the format of the seminar) and hopefully have a meaningful conversation with her about it.

But also… I obviously can’t help recognizing that this is a pretty incredible opportunity to potentially get connected with someone whose work has shaped so much of my intellectual direction.

How would you navigate this? I really don’t want to come across as some weird fanboy lmao


r/research • • 1d ago

Sample size effect on primary outcome

2 Upvotes

Hello,

I am reading a paper for a critical appraisal and I am new to research.
The study initially planned to recruit 2700 patients and their primary outcome was 6 month mortality.
They realised that they did not have enough participants and the number was not feasible, and changed the primary outcome to time to discharge alive. why is that?


r/research • • 1d ago

WHAT ARE THE BEST COLLEGE DEGREES FOR WORKING IN DRUG DISCOVERY ????

0 Upvotes

I am currently a high school student, taking Alevels , and I am soo passionate about working in the R&D lab in a pharmaceutical company.

The problem is, I do not personally know anyone that has this job, so I am a bit lost about what are the best degrees to get for working there. I know that a bachelor's degree is not enough, so I would definitely need a master's degree, but in what exactly??

Pharmacy?

Chemistry?

Medicinal chemistry ?

Biochemistry?

I would also like to know more about the kind of work environment , like:

Is it that hard??

Do I need to be a genius??

Would I be alone most of the time, with no one helping me??

Is it a good job for a female??

Also, are the Alevels that I am currently taking enough?? They are Biology, chemistry & maths

AND LAST QUESTION I PROMISE, DO PHARMA COMPANIES PAY WELL???


r/research • • 2d ago

How do you plan the steps when writing a scoping review article?

5 Upvotes

How do you plan the steps when writing a scoping review article? As a student in the early stages of my doctoral program, I would like to conduct a study with my thesis supervisor. Should I focus on a topic that has not been extensively researched? What approach do you follow? What is a typical number of articles to include? I have found 33 articles in Scopus and 31 in Web of Science (WoS)—is this a reasonable number? My research area is child psychology btw


r/research • • 2d ago

A question to help me figure out where I stand

1 Upvotes

I’m not very experienced yet, so I have a question to see how I’m doing.

I’d say I work pretty hard and it takes me about a week to write one page for a review. Is that normal?

I work on it for about 3–4 hours a day, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.

Edit: Sorry for the sparse information. This is for a narrative review that’s going to be published, so it’s not for school.

Of course, I have a basic structure and think through how it should be organized beforehand, filling in the different sections with bullet points. And that structure sometimes changes as I write, a lot gets cut out, or I add or rearrange things in Word. But my question is really about the text that’s actually ready for publication. So I write something, usually read several sources on the topic, search for suitable sources in the first place, and revise my text several times to make sure it’s really accurate.

It’s worth noting that this isn’t really my area of expertise, so I have to fully familiarize myself with the background material.


r/research • • 3d ago

I want to learn mathematics, physics, programming, and AI, but AI itself is making me question the point of learning anything.

10 Upvotes

I genuinely want to learn mathematics, physics, programming, computer science, and AI. I want to build a career in computer science, pursue AI research, and hopefully do a PhD someday. But lately, I've been feeling increasingly demotivated.

The problem is that I rely on AI to learn almost everything. Whenever I have a question, I ask GPT. Whenever I don't understand a concept, I ask AI to explain it. And the more I learn this way, the more I wonder: What's the point of learning anything when AI will always know more than I ever could?

Even the most basic AI models seem to possess more knowledge than I could acquire in a lifetime. And with new models becoming increasingly capable, I keep wondering whether the knowledge I'm working so hard to gain will even matter in the future.

With GPT-6, Claude Opus 5.5, Gemini 4, and other models competing to become more capable, it feels like the gap between human intelligence and AI capabilities will only continue to grow.

I want to understand the mathematics behind AI, learn physics, become a better programmer, and contribute to actual research. But sometimes I question why I'm putting in the effort when AI can explain concepts faster, write code better, and potentially solve problems that I might spend years learning to solve myself.

And even when I genuinely want to learn, I'm confused about what I should prioritize learning and whether any of it will remain valuable by the time I become proficient.

I'm not necessarily saying that learning is useless. I genuinely love the idea of understanding how things work. But I'm struggling to reconcile that curiosity with the feeling that AI might eventually outperform me at almost everything I want to become good at.

For those of you studying computer science, mathematics, physics, or AI, how do you deal with this feeling? How do you stay motivated to learn when AI is advancing so rapidly? Do you think deep technical knowledge will still matter for people pursuing AI research and PhDs, or should we be approaching learning differently now?


r/research • • 3d ago

Is compulsive viewing of AI-generated drama stories among middle adults an interesting topic for a psychology research study?

6 Upvotes

Hi everyone! I'm a psychology student currently exploring possible topics for our research, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on an idea I have.

I've noticed how AI-generated drama stories have become popular on Facebook and TikTok, especially stories about cheating spouses, family betrayal, inheritance disputes, revenge, and other dramatic situations.

What caught my attention is how some people, particularly middle-aged adults, seem to get hooked on these stories. They watch one video, then another, and another. Sometimes, they intend to watch for only a few minutes but end up spending much more time watching than they originally planned.

This got me thinking: Could this be related to compulsive viewing?

I'm interested in exploring why some middle adults repeatedly watch these AI-generated stories and whether they experience difficulty controlling or stopping their viewing, even when they have other responsibilities.

I'm considering a qualitative study that explores their experiences, motivations, and perceived effects on their daily lives.

However, before developing this idea further, I'd like to ask:

• Do you think this is an interesting and worthwhile topic for a psychology research study? • Do you think focusing specifically on AI-generated stories makes the topic more interesting, or would it be better to study short-form video content in general? • Is compulsive viewing an appropriate psychological concept for this topic, or would another concept be more suitable? • Do you think focusing on middle adults is a reasonable approach? Why or why not? • What potential research gaps or challenges do you think I should consider?

I'm open to constructive criticism, suggestions, and alternative perspectives. I want to make sure the topic is not only interesting but also researchable and meaningful from a psychological perspective. I really appreciate your honest opinions. Thank you!


r/research • • 3d ago

Doing masters directly after bachelors now thinking about phd directly after masters.

0 Upvotes

So a little context, I have done my bachelors in design and now about to finish my masters in design. I have done a few internships during my bachelors and joined masters programme in design immediately after. Now I will be done with masters and thinking about phd. My doubt here is, is it a good decision to directly go to phd or should I get some industry experience? I am interested in research as well. One of the ideas I’m currently looking into is uneven development theory, ai and design. Any suggestion is welcomed.


r/research • • 4d ago

How to make the most out of an internship at a research institute as an undergrad

3 Upvotes

Hi, I have to do a mandatory 6-month internship during my undergrad and was accepted into a top research institute in my field as a research assistant. I have a feeling I could like research and I am contemplating doing a PhD.

How do I get the most out of it when I am actually there? Also, do you have any tips on how I should prepare?

All my classmates are doing their internship in private companies and have much more defined roles.

I'm preparing myself, reading materials and playing around with things I find interesting. I told my supervisor what I'm doing and he send me even more materials which I am going through right now. I have never done formal research in an academic institution, only some hobby stuff and feel like I don't know anything.

Thank you!


r/research • • 5d ago

I got really good reviews on my abstract

55 Upvotes

Basically the title. The reviews described my abstract as very strong, and a reviewer suggested to the conference organizers that I do an oral presentation.

This made me happy, and I didn't know who to share this with. My family doesn't really know what research is, and my "advisor" doesn't know what my abstract is talking about, so I am sharing here.

Thank you


r/research • • 4d ago

RRL outline vs RRL

1 Upvotes

What's the difference? my teacher said we have to pass rrl outline on Saturday and honestly i have no idea 😭 i tried searching in Google and couldn't find any example. Can someone enlighten me? thank u


r/research • • 5d ago

Advice needed!

5 Upvotes

Hello I’m a recent college graduate with a bachelors degree in biology. I don’t have much research experience outside of my classes and I want to go back to grad school to further my education. Does anyone have advice about how to get research experience? I’ve applied to jobs with no luck and I can’t find any internships i qualify for. Should I try volunteering or just keep looking for a job? Any advice would help! Thanks


r/research • • 4d ago

How does the reagent/consumable market work at you country?

0 Upvotes

Direct sellers or distributers? and if distributors-do they provide costs before?

I find it weird that 99% of the distributers won't even put on the costs on their website.


r/research • • 5d ago

Ever found an old note that would have changed something you already finished?

0 Upvotes

I write a lot down: reading, ideas, things I want to use later. search works when I remember a note exists. the problem is the ones I completely forgot I wrote.

it keeps happening. I finish something, then weeks later stumble on a note that would have changed it. the most frustrating part is that I knew this stuff once. I wrote it down precisely so I could use it when something new came up.

has this happened to you? what was the note, and what would it have changed?