3 ms·

I've had more of an urge to do some research on CS topics lately (beyond the usual you can find in textbooks), but as someone who was never in academia, and onl

I've had more of an urge to do some research on CS topics lately (beyond the usual you can find in textbooks), but as someone who was never in academia, and only got an undergraduate degree, I don't really know how to approach it as an outsider, like what sources I should use, how to find something to focus on, etc. Does anyone else have any experience with this and have any recommendations for how to approach it? I imagine I'll probably have more success in areas that are game or recreational mathematics related (like Martin Gardner), at least to get started.

70rd 4y ago
Hard question to answer without specifying topics. The usual way is to find an introductory textbook on the subject, find the papers and authors referenced for results and theorems and work forward through the literature. This will give you both historical perspective and develop your knowledge at a gradual pace.
sebastian_z 4y ago
You could look for academic conferences in your area of interest and see what people are working on [1]. It is not necessary to have particular degree for submitting your work to a conference. Since most review processes are double-blind no one would know at submission time anyways. Though, knowing the process and how a "typical" paper looks like, on which people in academia have an advantage, certainly helps a lot. [1] E.g., https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/events/2022-top-computer-science-conferences https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/events/2022-....
rhines 4y ago
While I also only completed an undergraduate degree, I did spend a few semesters doing research with a professor and ended up being co-author on a paper with him. Doing a first paper without the guidance of a researcher in the field would be very hard, but doable, and certainly performing research is doable. I'd start with figuring out roughly what you want to investigate. Try to narrow it down as much as you can, but I understand that it'll start broad and probably eventually narrow down after going down a few rabbit holes. Eventually you have a pretty specific field you know you want to do research in. Find the top conferences in the field, look through some of the papers that seem interesting, and look at what they cite. You should be able to compile a list of textbooks and foundational articles that crop up often - read all of these. Maybe even try to replicate the results of some of the foundational papers - a lot of the time new work is extensions of the foundations, and people writing papers started out replicating those initial works anyway. If you're struggling to narrow things down or figure out what's important, focus on papers from one researcher or research group. Maybe even send them an email if you want their advice on what to read. Finally, you have a decent grasp of the underpinnings of this narrow field and have seen some examples of how it's been extended in modern times. You might now have some ideas of what to experiment with in your own research, or if not you can try replicating more modern papers and see if that gives you ideas of what more to investigate.

70rd 4y ago

Hard question to answer without specifying topics. The usual way is to find an introductory textbook on the subject, find the papers and authors referenced for results and theorems and work forward through the literature. This will give you both historical perspective and develop your knowledge at a gradual pace.

sebastian_z 4y ago

You could look for academic conferences in your area of interest and see what people are working on [1]. It is not necessary to have particular degree for submitting your work to a conference. Since most review processes are double-blind no one would know at submission time anyways. Though, knowing the process and how a "typical" paper looks like, on which people in academia have an advantage, certainly helps a lot. [1] E.g., https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/events/2022-top-computer-science-conferences https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/events/2022-....

rhines 4y ago

While I also only completed an undergraduate degree, I did spend a few semesters doing research with a professor and ended up being co-author on a paper with him. Doing a first paper without the guidance of a researcher in the field would be very hard, but doable, and certainly performing research is doable. I'd start with figuring out roughly what you want to investigate. Try to narrow it down as much as you can, but I understand that it'll start broad and probably eventually narrow down after going down a few rabbit holes. Eventually you have a pretty specific field you know you want to do research in. Find the top conferences in the field, look through some of the papers that seem interesting, and look at what they cite. You should be able to compile a list of textbooks and foundational articles that crop up often - read all of these. Maybe even try to replicate the results of some of the foundational papers - a lot of the time new work is extensions of the foundations, and people writing papers started out replicating those initial works anyway. If you're struggling to narrow things down or figure out what's important, focus on papers from one researcher or research group. Maybe even send them an email if you want their advice on what to read. Finally, you have a decent grasp of the underpinnings of this narrow field and have seen some examples of how it's been extended in modern times. You might now have some ideas of what to experiment with in your own research, or if not you can try replicating more modern papers and see if that gives you ideas of what more to investigate.