I think many PhD students try to find gaps and try to exploit it. This may have worked in the past but from my personal experience, you kind of get into a rat race one which you will never win. It becomes overwhelming tracking everyone and kind of gets exhausting. The other idea definitely is to start small. Instead of thinking for a publication, approach it in curiosity way. Can X work with Y? Why or why not? If theres a paper, great that means there is some merit to this question. This way I think instead of getting overwhelmed, you start seeing potential answers to the question and you test and break stuff more. End of the day, every great paper came from breaking and building it back again. So be a researcher not a publisher. Atleast I am trying to but still hopelessly failing :(
Very useful post, may we connect?
I think many PhD students try to find gaps and try to exploit it. This may have worked in the past but from my personal experience, you kind of get into a rat race one which you will never win. It becomes overwhelming tracking everyone and kind of gets exhausting. The other idea definitely is to start small. Instead of thinking for a publication, approach it in curiosity way. Can X work with Y? Why or why not? If theres a paper, great that means there is some merit to this question. This way I think instead of getting overwhelmed, you start seeing potential answers to the question and you test and break stuff more. End of the day, every great paper came from breaking and building it back again. So be a researcher not a publisher. Atleast I am trying to but still hopelessly failing :(
Yeah I agree with the sentiment:
- publishing is a bad goal to optimize
- find a (big) problem you really care about solving