• Question: How do you keep your research interesting and come up with new ideas when your studies don't give the results you expect?

    Asked by Ash to Alex, Laura, Lesley, Richard, vediacan on 13 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Richard Prince

      Richard Prince answered on 13 Jun 2015:

      Hi Ash,
      The best way to do this is to read as many papers on other people’s research as you can. The great thing about modern science is how easy it is to get access to scientific publications. I can read them at home, on the train or on the beach if I have something as simple as my phone with me. Often, you can work out why your experiments haven’t worked by reading about other people’s work, and you can see “gaps” in the field that need to be plugged – those are avenues for new research.
      Best wishes
      Richard

    • Photo: Laura Newton

      Laura Newton answered on 13 Jun 2015:

      Hey!

      Sometimes it is hard to stay motivated if your experiments don’t go as you planned so usually I try and do some different experiments or work on something out of the lab for a day or two. Most of my ideas come as flashes of inspiration when I’m thinking about something else.

      But just because you didn’t get the results you expected doesn’t mean it’s wrong! Sometimes you just have to think a bit harder about what is going on and reading about other people’s results and talking to other people in the university can help with that. Often if the result wasn’t what you thought it was going to be, you have even more questions about what it actually means so it leads on to more experiments to try and find the answers.

      Thanks for your question!
      Laura

    • Photo: Vedia Can

      Vedia Can answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Dear Ash,

      Another good question!!

      I never give up, so, I try and try and try again until I get the results I want without getting bored. I know that the answer is there, I just need to remain patient and trust my skills and my research. However, one thing I enjoy doing is combining art with my research to keep it interesting. So, I sometimes prefer to carry out qualitative (visual, could be a colour change or a microscopic observation with the aid of dyes) research to provide extra data for my quantitative (numerical) findings.

      Best Wishes,

      Vedia

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