In research we always encounter three classes of works - previous works, recent works and upcoming works. Many of us take plenty of time to understand what others have done, without any solid idea of what we want to do. To avoid such a wasted effort the process of literature survey is recommended. But there is more than that we should do, that is what I try to convey here.
It is said that to master a field an average human being requires 10,000 hrs ~ 417 days to be spend on that subject. And research is kind of mastery of a small subfield in the vast discipline of your interest. The journey in research mostly starts with a literature review - familiarization with the history of the work done in that field. This often deals with reading, sometime doing experiments, and some other times just skimming. In my experience, literature survey also happens to act as a filter (-I am from a DSP background) for choosing the right problem statement. It also helps in identifying opportunities and finding gaps in existing tree of knowledge. I would like to call this procedure more as a systematization of knowledge (or SoK, I heard this phrase in a talk few days back). The reason being that, it give much more meaning to the purpose of the activity. In my opinion research work should also balance between theory and practice. I would like to share an analogy to make it clear. Imagine how a one winged bird will fly. The one winged bird cannot fly too long as it will always be changing direction because of the imbalance. Similar is the case with doing research with only theories. Unless the theory is brought into practice, the piece of work flies like a one winged bird.
Happy SoKing
It is said that to master a field an average human being requires 10,000 hrs ~ 417 days to be spend on that subject. And research is kind of mastery of a small subfield in the vast discipline of your interest. The journey in research mostly starts with a literature review - familiarization with the history of the work done in that field. This often deals with reading, sometime doing experiments, and some other times just skimming. In my experience, literature survey also happens to act as a filter (-I am from a DSP background) for choosing the right problem statement. It also helps in identifying opportunities and finding gaps in existing tree of knowledge. I would like to call this procedure more as a systematization of knowledge (or SoK, I heard this phrase in a talk few days back). The reason being that, it give much more meaning to the purpose of the activity. In my opinion research work should also balance between theory and practice. I would like to share an analogy to make it clear. Imagine how a one winged bird will fly. The one winged bird cannot fly too long as it will always be changing direction because of the imbalance. Similar is the case with doing research with only theories. Unless the theory is brought into practice, the piece of work flies like a one winged bird.
Happy SoKing
