Hi, I have just started a PhD about a month ago and have a question. How do you approach contacting other researchers and how far do you go? I need to select analytes for my project and my supervisors cannot really help in it (I am sort of joining 2 areas and they have experience in the other). I emailed a Prof at another Uni who has considerable experience in the area. I asked some simple questions on some papers he published and he replied back, and said he would be willing to help further.

I am really tempted to ask him for help/guidance on analyte selection based on his experience. Has anyone been through this? By telling him I will certainly get some much needed support, and good insights. But I am not sure how far you should go with telling others what you are doing.

Any advice?

Just ask, I have approached a number of researchers over the past year from around the world - all experienced in my subject area and all have been very helpful, no harm in asking, all they can do is say no!

Same here. I'm also at the beginning of my PhD and I contacted quite a few academics. All of them were very helpful, or if they could not personally help much they always recommended that I get in touch with a colleague of theirs. I think the majority of them like it when budding academics contact them and ask about their work, they see it as a compliment.