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5. Get to know the literature I'm not writing a thesis, but a book on teaching coding, and this one point is really important. One of my chapters was on the co

5. Get to know the literature I'm not writing a thesis, but a book on teaching coding, and this one point is really important. One of my chapters was on the cognitive benefits of writing software code--which I assumed were great because of Seymor Papert ("Mindstorms") and Ted Nelson's ("Computer Lib/Dream Machines") glowing enthusiasm for teaching kids how to code. I started writing the chapter and had to get into the literature to find references to support the idea that learning to code carried concrete cognitive benefits. The research was extremely mixed, with one survey of the literature being highly critical of Papert for assuming so many benefits when the research was not finding that at all. I ended up having to stop everything and just read papers for a week to understand what science really knew about the subject. When I went back to rewrite my chapter, I had to temper my own enthusiasm and add numerous qualifications and cautions about my claims considering the evidence. I'm happy for the experience as my thoughts on the subject are much more highly nuanced now, but it was very disheartening at first.

Quanticles 11y ago
There are pro's and con's to studying the literature. The main pro is that you can avoid a dead end. The main con is that your ideas will be shaped by the literature (i.e., not as unique). I tend to try to solve a problem myself first (this could be days or weeks), then look at the literature. If I looked at the literature first, then my ideas would look like the literature. It's a gamble either way
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
CS literature is uniformly abysmal.
- kctess5 11y ago
  False.
Obi_Juan_Kenobi 11y ago
Beyond that, you have to talk to people. At least in my field, there is an uncomfortable amount of cultural knowledge; many papers are known to be bunk, but have not been retracted, or are otherwise compromised. You wouldn't know it from reading the literature but for a few carefully worded sentences when referencing some results. I maintain that the most important domain knowledge is understanding what evidence/methods are actually robust, and what just sounds nice. But yes, any research requires a lot of reading. If you don't like doing that (and ideally you really enjoy it) you're going to have a very tough time of it. You also won't have the background to have good conversations with people or to design experiments.

Quanticles 11y ago

There are pro's and con's to studying the literature. The main pro is that you can avoid a dead end. The main con is that your ideas will be shaped by the literature (i.e., not as unique). I tend to try to solve a problem myself first (this could be days or weeks), then look at the literature. If I looked at the literature first, then my ideas would look like the literature. It's a gamble either way

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

CS literature is uniformly abysmal.

kctess5 11y ago
False.

Obi_Juan_Kenobi 11y ago

Beyond that, you have to talk to people. At least in my field, there is an uncomfortable amount of cultural knowledge; many papers are known to be bunk, but have not been retracted, or are otherwise compromised. You wouldn't know it from reading the literature but for a few carefully worded sentences when referencing some results. I maintain that the most important domain knowledge is understanding what evidence/methods are actually robust, and what just sounds nice. But yes, any research requires a lot of reading. If you don't like doing that (and ideally you really enjoy it) you're going to have a very tough time of it. You also won't have the background to have good conversations with people or to design experiments.