notice 'anon' - ashamed to identify myself. In my first year I collected a whole file of papers and read about two of them. You won't understand much until you're actually DOING similar research yourself. I'm currently challenging myself to read the whole file. I did contact the author of a relevant paper once to find out their secrets and they were very helpful...
re: what should we do if our experiments go wrong - ask questions, loads of them, don't ever feel embarrassed about not knowing something you haven't been taught. Look outside your own research group, other departments in your uni. I also seem to have developed a knack for getting people to lend me things. If you don't ask, you don't get - I haven't ever been outright refused help. The author I contacted was so great - I had been trying for a month to get a certain technique to work and he talked me through it step by step. It turned out that there were lots of minor problems that I'd probably never have identified by myself. Look specifically for papers that deal with TECHNIQUES, METHODS, TUTORIAL type things. I'm not sure people would be so willing to share breakthrough results.
PostgraduateForum Is a trading name of FindAUniversity Ltd
FindAUniversity Ltd, 77 Sidney St, Sheffield, S1 4RG, UK. Tel +44 (0) 114 268 4940 Fax: +44 (0) 114 268 5766
An active and supportive community.
Support and advice from your peers.
Your postgraduate questions answered.
Use your experience to help others.
Enter your email address below to get started with your forum account
Enter your username below to login to your account
An email has been sent to your email account along with instructions on how to reset your password. If you do not recieve your email, or have any futher problems accessing your account, then please contact our customer support.
or continue as guest
To ensure all features on our website work properly, your computer, tablet or mobile needs to accept cookies. Our cookies don’t store your personal information, but provide us with anonymous information about use of the website and help us recognise you so we can offer you services more relevant to you. For more information please read our privacy policy
Agree Agree