A few days ago, a younger martial brother who had just been admitted to the doctor's degree wrote to me and asked me, "how to read a doctoral degree efficiently?"

Let's talk about the current scientific research background. Nowadays, the group of doctoral graduates is like a snowball. With the pressure brought by Shanghai turtle ashore, it is more and more difficult to get scientific research positions in Colleges and universities after doctoral graduation. Under the oppression of this situation, it is necessary for students who are studying for a doctoral (or master's) degree! Whether you can gain something during your PhD (the same applies to Masters) is not only a matter of whether you graduate or not, but also a matter of survival and employment opportunities. Based on this, brother Yu relies on the old to sell the old. His opinions are as follows:

1 choose a promising research direction as much as possible

The future research direction is strategic consideration. Strategic failure can not be compensated by tactical victory. Doctoral students are different from master students. Master students are more training of scientific research literacy. For doctoral students, you should ensure that when you graduate, you will advance into the top 5% of China in the small direction of your research. Therefore, it is very important to choose a good direction and explore a promising scientific problem. So what are the promising scientific questions? Scientific problems are not good or bad. What I call a promising scientific problem requires several conditions:

First, this scientific problem (or direction) can enable you to study for at least 10 years, or even more. At least you can continue to do it after graduation, rather than "shooting for another place". The continuity of scientific research is very important, especially after work, whether the work during the doctoral period can be well continued is very important to your academic career. There are also doctors who find another way after graduation, but it is very difficult in reality.

Second, the research direction should aim at the cutting-edge fields. Of course, this is difficult for some disciplines. At least we should strive to solve some classical scientific problems, such as the mechanism of species coexistence in ecology.

Third, the research direction can have a certain application prospect. Now, the state is more and more advocating the transformation of scientific research achievements. If we can't achieve something in theory, it is also a good way to transform into patent achievements.

Of course, I can't take up all these articles. I can get one or two of them. But there is a dilemma in reality: your research should match the research of your tutor. If the tutor's team itself is at the forefront of the world, what I said earlier is nonsense. If you meet an ordinary mentor, his research itself is not at the forefront. In addition to the above problems, more consideration should be given to matching with the tutor's research.

2. Lay a good foundation by reading more literature

Literature is the life of academia. It's needless to say that you should read more classic articles! Many students seem to read the literature every day, but they don't know after reading one question and three questions. There are problems with this way of reading literature. For reading literature, I personally have three suggestions: first, mark each literature with serial number before reading. There are many advanced software that can be realized. Second, we must take literature reading notes. First write the article serial number in the notes, and then list the main ideas, innovations, deficiencies and places that can be used for reference. In particular, we should focus on learning other people's analysis methods. It is best to re analyze them according to other people's article data. Such a reading habit can make you "better and stronger". When you master the analysis method of 10-20 articles, it will be much easier for you to read other articles. With the records of literature reading, you can pick them up when writing articles. Don't read literature like a bear breaking corn. Third, when reading the literature, pay attention to excerpt some classic sentences. There is a fixed routine in the writing of scientific papers, and the extraction of classical sentences is very important for future writing. This is similar to the learning method of high school English. When you extract dozens of common sentences, you will find that English writing is actually a routine.

3. Learn to make academic reports

If we can say that reading the literature is the "internal skill" of scientific research, then the academic report is the "external skill" of scientific research. The real martial arts needs both internal and external training, and none of them is indispensable. You should know that academic report is also a part of academic research. An excellent scientific research worker should not only be able to do scientific research, but also be able to report. It seems simple to make an academic report. Maybe every graduate student has made a report at the group meeting, but few people really speak well! How can we speak well and what is the standard to measure good? Personally, I think a good standard should at least make Datong understand, not just limited to small peers. If you report in the research group, everyone may understand it. This does not mean that you speak well, but that everyone has a common scientific research background and similar research direction. How to make your peers understand is your ability. To make Datong understand, you must follow strict scientific research ideas and training. For example, the report should show your scientific background, scientific problems, scientific methods, etc. Especially when scientific problems are raised, if you encounter unfamiliar concepts, you should first understand them. For example, you study the effect of temperature on allometric growth. You should first explain to others what is allometric growth, what indicators can measure allometric growth, and what factors affect allometric growth. Let others have some background knowledge, and then go on with it. When I was interviewing for a job, I found a feature: if you can explain things in your small direction clearly and let the following big peers understand, they will be very happy. Because people will have a sense of achievement when they learn knowledge they don't understand before! The terrible thing is to confuse others. Not only the academic report, but also the interview and fund application in the future, which need to lay a solid foundation during the doctoral period.

4 learn to communicate with tutors

The subtle relationship between teachers and students is no less than that between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. How to deal with the relationship with tutors is one of the key factors for the success of postgraduates. In terms of the unity of contradictions, there are common interests between teachers and students. Tutors hope that graduate students will produce results, complete their own projects and contribute to their own scientific research career; In this process, middle school students get exercise and accumulate academic achievements in graduation and job hunting. This is the main contradiction between teachers and students, which is always implemented throughout the graduate stage. However, in the specific implementation process, there will be some problems between teachers and students, that is, secondary contradictions. If the secondary needs contradiction is not solved, it can be transformed into the main contradiction. The tutor has more than one student. For the tutor, the greatest benefit is the upper limit of excellent students, not the lower limit of ordinary students. For the same subject, whoever can complete and publish high-level articles with high quality will be focused on training, and resources will be tilted. For the tutor, it doesn't matter whether this article is published by Zhang San or Li Si. What matters is the publication of the article. Therefore, the "Matthew effect" in the large research group is very obvious. The excellent ones are getting better and better, and the bad ones are getting worse and worse. Therefore, how to seize the opportunity and make a good impression on you is very important.

Students' academic performance can be roughly divided into three categories: first, students have done what their tutor did not arrange and published journals that their tutor wanted to publish but did not publish before. This is the "guest of honor" of the tutor and the students who make the tutor proud; Second class students finish the tasks assigned by their tutors with high quality; Third class students don't understand and procrastinate when they are told by their tutors. No tutor likes procrastinating students. In addition, things outside academia are also important. You should know that the teacher is a man, not a god! To be frank, you are either capable or obedient. Like Li Kui and Song Jiang. In Liangshan scientific research team, Li Kui's scientific research ability is very general and doesn't deserve Tiangang star at all. But Li Kui listens to Song Jiang's words and only listens to Song Jiang's words. This is also a way (I personally do not encourage this behavior, but it does exist). What I fear most is the kind of students who don't have the ability to do everything all day. For example, the tutor asked you how your task was completed? If you haven't finished it, keep a low profile and be euphemistic, even if you say: teacher, I'm sorry, I'm not in good condition and haven't finished it. The teacher will understand. What I fear most is that you smile and say to the teacher, "I'm playing these days and I'm not in the mood to work!" sorry, this example happened to me a few days ago. If it wasn't for my personal experience, I might not believe it! It seems that art comes from life. It's true!

5. Communicate with domestic and foreign small counterparts

As the old saying goes: those who do not seek the overall situation are not enough to seek a domain; He who does not seek eternity is not enough to seek a moment! During the doctoral period, we should accumulate for our future academic path. Contact and communicate with small peers at home and abroad, share with each other and make common progress. Remember, communication must find someone who is almost or slightly better than you. You can't communicate across orders of magnitude. For example, you, a doctor, often go to discuss problems with academicians and outstanding young people to see if someone pays attention to you? On the contrary, your small peers, such as which doctor has published an article, can exchange and cooperate on issues of mutual concern. Remember that this is icing on the cake, not charcoal in the snow! The so-called communication, one is communication, and the focus is flow. How to flow, you have to have "things" to communicate with others. You only ask for other people's technologies and methods, and can't provide them equally. If you can't do this, it won't last long.

4. Publish articles as much as possible during the doctoral period

Publish articles as much as possible during the doctoral period. Of course, I'm talking about basic science! Liberal arts and technical engineering research are not included! Although the state has successively issued relevant policies, emphasizing that heroes are not discussed in articles. However, what do we do in science, especially in basic research, without reading articles? The quality of published articles must be given priority. Don't make up the number. Send them to some classic journals as much as possible.

Rory said so much. I'm ashamed that I didn't do some of them myself. I hope you choose the good and follow it. If it is not good, change it. Encourage with you. I hope the green is better than the blue!