After years of conducting research, I have had some successes and many failures. When working with undergraduate students, I have found a few principles that make the process run much more smoothly. Sometimes I’m a little surprised that the principles below are not a given (e.g., taking notes during a meeting), but then I have to remind myself that some of these no-brainers were actually told to me explicitly by someone else. Others are principles I wish I would have been told many years ago. Either way, I think it’s better to be up front and clear with expectations than hope that people follow some idea I have in my head (why would they without being told, really?).
1. Take notes by hand
I have meetings with students often, and I’m shocked by the number of times I see students not taking notes on anything we discuss. I frequently make suggestions to students on books to read, ideas to look into, software recommendations, people to contact, and actions to take. When students don’t take notes, it’s common for them to come back and ask the same questions. That’s a poor use of everyone’s time. Take notes. It may produce awkward silence as you write while I sit there. That’s ok. Learning to tolerate awkward silences is a good skill to develop. Taking notes on a phone or a laptop is not good enough. I like to draw diagrams and maps that don’t translate well to digital transcription (at least not yet). If you like to have a digital copy of notes, convert them later. We’re also not going to record every conversation on a phone and produce an AI transcription.
Also, I am more than happy to provide you with a notebook if you would like (please just ask!). A notebook is considered research material and shouldn’t come out of your own pocket (although you should have your own notebooks for personal projects anyway). I’d also go so far as to suggest that every time you have a one-on-one meeting with a professor, you should always bring a notebook and take physical notes. The two best students I’ve ever had both did this every time we talked. They are now the students I reach out to with consulting opportunities and nominate for awards.
2. Learn to touch type
For the vast majority of students (or other professionals) who do not yet know how to touch type (that is, typing without looking down at one’s hands), developing this skill will result in the single largest efficiency improvement, hands down. The number of times that I’ve helped students troubleshoot a GIS/programming problem and watched them type something incorrect, and then keep typing, and then keep typing some more, and then look up and realize that they made a mistake early on, and then backspace or move the cursor back, and then try again, and then make the same mistake, and then try again…is enough time for me to write this post a thousand times over without AI assistance.
I didn’t learn to touch type until I was a 26 year old doctoral student. It wasn’t too late for me, and it’s not too late for you. I used a resource called Typing Club. It has a bunch of dumb children’s games embedded, and you can skip over those, but the main content is solid. I don’t expect you to be a perfect 150 WPM typer while working with me, but if you do not yet know how to touch type, I do expect you to be improving. Spend the first ~20 minutes per day (on the clock) improving your typing abilities. Typing might be obsolete in five years, but until then, it’ll be a critically important skill when working with a computer, and one that can be developed in a month if you commit 20 minutes a day.
3. Generate ideas; do not be an NPC
In class, I expect students to answer assignment questions exactly as written. Less than that will certainly result in points deducted, but more than that is not expected. Research is different. You should be generating ideas, asking questions, and developing thoughts beyond the bare minimum. Experiment, go on tangents, read papers only vaguely related to our research, and learn new things. Report back to the group on intriguing things you find. Report back to the group on bad ideas too. Insult a paper’s quality. Mock an author’s writing style. Have a personality. Have a spine too. You might find out you’re wrong. Be willing to admit that. Be willing to make mistakes. I do often. Don’t be an NPC. The world is bursting at the seams with them. Help build a community of curiosity within the group (that sounds so ridiculously cheesy, but it is an accurate description of what I want). Additionally, research is also a place where you should carry yourself much more like a colleague than a student.
4. Learn new skills
You are not perfect. I already know that. Skills within a research group can vary wildly from person to person. I do not care where you are starting from, and I absolutely mean that. If you didn’t have the capacity to work with me, I would not have hired you. I care about how you develop over the course of a summer/year. The starting point doesn’t matter. It is much more important to me that you learn new skills and develop as a practitioner than the group publish papers in top journals or anything. I’m a tenured professor who doesn’t need to publish more papers (I’m becoming more and more convinced the process is a sham anyway). I’m much more interested in investing in your career development than my own at this point. I’ve had research groups that haven’t published anything that I now look back on and consider a success because the project helped a student (or two) get a job in the exact area that we were researching. I’ve had other groups that do publish papers in top journals. Both work for me, and I’m too old and jaded about the system to believe the latter is more important than the former. I also think there’s something inherently dehumanizing about valuing papers more than the students who might help write them. All that said, simply doing research with me is not enough to earn a job reference from me in the future, and if I do agree to be a reference for you, the strength of your reference will be determined by the quality of your work and how closely you followed this manifesto.
5. Reach out when you get stuck
You’re going to get stuck and not know what to do. You will not apologize for that. There’s a delicate balance between consulting me as a research mentor for questions that you could simply Google yourself versus spinning your wheels and not accomplishing anything. In my experience in working on research projects with students, I find that nearly all err on the side of not reaching out more than the other way around. When you get stuck, here’s what I would suggest:
- Try a few different approaches
- Google your question or ask an LLM
- Talk to your fellow student researcher(s) (if you have one)
After that, if an issue is keeping you from moving forward, reach out to me via Discord! I expect the research group Discord to be only slightly less vibrant than your favorite Discord server you run with your friends. Fewer memes, maybe, but almost just as much discussion.
6. Respond to direct questions in 24 hours
This is a general principle for the research team but absolutely non-negotiable when we are working with external partners (e.g., city officials, researchers at other universities, etc.). Many times I’ll post something in the Discord that’s simply a reference to something helpful or a vague idea that I have. It’s not necessary to respond directly to these, but questions like “When are you available for a meeting?” or “Did you see the response from [so-and-so]?” should be responded to promptly. Even a response like “Not sure, let me check on my schedule and get back to you,” is infinitely better than crickets. Questions from external partners should be responded to as soon as possible with suitable follow-ups.