 Research calls for specialized skills in several areas. This particular slide shows what are the kind of skills which are necessary for research, and these skills are covered in the course one by one. So, thinking is the most important thing that any research scholar has to do. So, we discuss a lot about thinking. Several levels of thinking are listed there, such as knowing comprehension, problem solving, critical thinking, creative thinking and so on. So, each of these aspects, particularly the last three, which are the most important from the point of view of researcher, these are discussed in detail. So, I will tell you what are the kind of topics which are discussed in this. Then problem finding, a research scholar has to find a problem for research, and a related topic is literature search. So, we will discuss a few things in this one hour course, discussed may be over a period of two or three lectures. So, proceeding further, you have technical communication, oral and written communication, and publishing and parenting. So, in this, a common portion of the course would discuss about topics related to oral communication and written communication, which are common to all. And then you must give an opportunity for the research scholar to actually make a presentation. And then you critically evaluate each scholar's presentation and give him a feedback like a doctor gives a prescription. So, each scholar is given a prescription of how he could improve his talk. So, each scholar typically is given 10 minutes time to present. And then the scholar is given another opportunity to present. And this second presentation of the scholar is graded. Now, obviously you have about 200 to 250 research scholars in the institute. You cannot do it at a common level, this activity. So, these activities are done at the departmental level, because they are the number is small. And you can give time to each research scholar to make two presentations. Some of the other things that are discussed in publishing and parenting are, say what is the kind of, what are the criteria which are used for reviewing an article. So, you typically take up review forms of some well-known journals and see what are the criteria on which they rate your paper. Similarly, what is the difference between a paper and a patent and so on. So, these topics are covered a little bit in detail. Then we have experimentation and modeling about which I will discuss in detail in this course here. And then you have time and stress management and professional ethics. So, research scholar undergoes a lot of stress. These experience of, you know, all research scholars. And then what are the, what is the origin of stress for research scholars? I mean everybody undergoes stress, that is known. But the point is for a research scholar, what are the specific things which are responsible for the stress? And how one can reduce the stress? For example, one of the stresses in a research scholar related to the relation between the student and the guide. Okay? So, many times it is found that good research scholars face difficulties with good guides. I mean competent research scholar and competent guide. You have problems. So, if people know exactly what is the origin of this problem. In fact, a lot of research has gone on these issues in recent years. These topics are actually discussed as a kind of counseling sessions in the time and stress management and professional ethics. These topics. Then we also have an hours discussion. Okay? It is like a group discussion. So, in which the scholars will be given some material in the beginning of the course and they will be given two to three weeks time to read up the material. This is one thing that we have been using for discussion. The article, however, doesn't have to do anything with electrical engineering. The article is about research. And it is actually a gist of the talk that Richard Hamming used to give in Bell Laboratories to all young entrants to Bell Laboratories. It is a very nice article. It is like a story where he has discussed various aspects of research such as what is a good problem and how do you find good problems? What are the traits of a good researcher? He has given case studies to illustrate how he observed some people with certain habits at the time when they joined and after 20 years, what were they doing? Okay? He tried to correlate the habits and their achievements. It also covers things such as research management and what importance does presentation play in a researcher's career? According to him, presentation is one of the most important skills that a research scholar has to develop. And we find that that is where many research scholars are actually lacking. Let's look at the degrees. What is the purpose of the different degrees that we try to get in our career? So, bachelor's degree, it is general education. The master's, on the other hand, is possession of advanced knowledge. The doctorate degree is a license to teach and guide others. So, strictly speaking, every teacher who is teaching science or engineering or any other subjects should be a PhD holder. Now, this is not what is happening in our country. There are difficulties with that. But this is exactly like driving a vehicle on the road without license. Teaching without a PhD is like driving a vehicle on the road without license. Okay? So, what is the meaning of research? This is one of the things that is covered in maybe 30 to 40 minutes in the lecture. So, go back and search until we find. That means research is an explorative activity. So, we need to distinguish research from the undergraduate education which is totally course-oriented. Let us see what are the points in which research education differs from undergraduate education. In research, you do not get well-defined problems to solve. It is your job to define the problem and as well as to solve it. This is one major difference between the undergraduate education where you write large number of examinations, where you are given well-defined small problems which each problem may take no more than 10 minutes to solve. Okay? And you solve a large number of such problems and aggregate of what you achieve from such examinations is given to you as a great point average. Now, research is totally different. You have to solve a big problem and the problem itself is not defined at the beginning of your research. So, you have to find a good problem, formulate it properly and then solve it. This is one major difference. The second difference, an undergraduate student's learning is managed by his teachers. A research scholar, on the other hand, is a manager of his own learning. Hence, he must be an independent thinker. So, what is meant here is you take an undergraduate education. I include M-Tech education also in undergraduate when I talk about undergraduate education here. Okay? You have a list of courses specified. You do have a few electives, but even those are specified by the teacher. Okay? So, everything is done. You have little bit of freedom here and there. That is what is meant by this teaching is managed by the teachers. Whereas for a research scholar actually, strictly speaking, it is a research scholar who must decide broadly what area he or she wants to do research in and then decide what courses he or she must take. Okay? In that sense, it is managed by the research scholar. Similarly, how to proceed, how to formulate the problem? A lot of this load is on the research scholar. So, independent thinking as distinguished from simple intelligence. Right? This independent thinking is very, very important for a research scholar. High intelligence may not necessarily indicate capability to the independent thing. Okay? But research scholar must be an independent thinker. Next, research education blurs the distinction between a student and his mentor. This is one major difference between undergraduate education and research education. When a research scholar, a good research scholar, when he joins the research program, right, guide is here and the scholar is here. But in the specific area of research, by the time a good research scholar has completed the work, right, the scholar is here or he may even be there in the specific area of research. So, it blurs the distinction between the guide and the scholar. This is one of the reasons for problems, interpersonal problems between the guide and the student. Why the problems arise? This is one of the reasons. So, it can be difficult for a guide sometimes to see that at the end of research, it is the scholar who is being called for presentations or lectures rather than the guide in a specific area. Right? So, how to manage this kind of things? This is very, very important. Let us look at some other features of research. Research entails prolonged and arduous labor and needs breadth of knowledge, persistence and concentration rather than brilliance. Doubt rather than overconfidence. So, research scholar, a person must take to research only if he or she has been getting lot of doubts whenever you sit in a class. This is important. Okay? It is not sufficient if you are getting high marks. Do you get lot of doubts? This is very important. And then, do you have the persistence to follow through and then get answers to those doubts? Not just asking the teacher about the doubt and getting an answer. Right? You have lot of students in a class who ask lot of questions, but they want the answer from the teacher. But in this case, the answer has to be partly given by the teacher in research and mostly by the student himself or herself. So, for example, a study of geniuses by psychologists have shown, this is one example, high but not the highest intelligence combined with greatest degree of persistence will achieve greater eminence than highest degree of intelligence with somewhat less persistence. This is the conclusion of research with 301 geniuses. All research scholars can associate themselves with those, right? That is the excitement in research. You may not be a genius, but at least you would like, everyone is aiming at that. So, if you want to look at geniuses, then please note that it is their persistence that has made them so, right? Not the intelligence, which means, it doesn't mean that you don't need intelligence. The point is the difference between a great person and not so great person is not in the intelligence, but in the persistence. That is the point. So, this applies to research also. Then, why research? There are a number of reasons, okay? What are the motives for research? I will not discuss those in detail here, but they are very, very important. What is the motivation with which you do research? At least the last point in the slide must be avoided, which actually is the reason for taking to research in many cases. That is, not having any real aims and not knowing what to do. Many people take to research, right? And this is one more reason for dissatisfaction of the guide, right? The student is not really motivated. So now, with this brief introduction about significance of research and in what way it is different, let us see in details about the thinking skills. So, creativity, problem solving and problem finding. So, what do we discuss in the course? Generally, our thinking tends to be reproductive. That is, based on similar problems encountered in the past or taught to solve. This is a feature of all our examinations, even in IIT, right? You may have difficult problems, but still mostly they are reproductive thinking. They test only reproductive thinking. For a researcher, what is important? We must learn to do productive thinking. That is, generate as many alternative approaches as possible. It so happens that in our education, we have not looked at this particular issue in that much detail as we should. That is, in our teaching, does it focus on covering a number of topics? Or does it give sufficient emphasis to discussing alternative approaches to the same topic? This is very, very important. This is what is important if you want to generate productive thinking. You want to develop productive thinking. So, for example, there are various levels of thinking. Lowest level is knowing or memory, then comprehension, then application of problem solving, which is the level at which we pitch all our questions in IIT at least. In outside colleges, other than IIT, in fact, examination test only knowing and in some cases comprehension. So, evaluation and critical thinking, which is very, very important for research and creativity. So, typically what is done in the course is, an example is given. This is an activity given to the students. A problem is given and then they are given about 20 minutes of time. They try to solve the problem. They try to solve the problem. In very rare cases, they may get a solution. This activity is meant to demonstrate these various levels of thinking. So, for instance, one of the problems that I have found very effective to deal with this topic is you have a square piece of paper. How to divide a square piece of paper into five equal squares? This is the problem. How do you divide a square piece of paper into five equal squares? You are allowed to cut and paste. You can divide into more number of pieces and then you can join them and so on. Ultimately, you must get five equal squares out of a square piece of paper. So, this problem is given to the students and they are given 20 minutes of time. After 20 minutes, you do a discussion of how different techniques or methods are being adopted by people to solve this problem. After the discussion, you clearly classify the various levels of thinking. I cannot conduct the activity because if you have the activity, then the impact of this discussion is more. That is how, in fact, the effort of this course is to introduce such activities at various points. To actually help the person learn in a permanent manner. So, in this case, for example, the gist of this problem is that it is an application of Pythagoras theorem. Now, if a student is taught about Pythagoras theorem and then you set a question in the exam saying state and proof Pythagoras theorem. This is testing knowing memory because you have done the proof in the class and the same thing you are asking in the exam. On the other hand, if you set a question saying that state and proof Pythagoras theorem and explain its significance. So, what is its significance? For example, one significance of Pythagoras theorem is that you can geometrically realize an irrational number. Square root of five is an irrational number. But geometrically, you can realize this number. This is one thing that Pythagoras theorem says. So, like this, there is significance of Pythagoras theorem. So, if a person understand these points, then you can say he is able to comprehend Pythagoras theorem. On the other hand, now, supposing you set a question like this that applying Pythagoras theorem divide a square piece of paper into five equal squares. Now, this problem is an application level or problem solving type of question. Then, if you do not give the hint that use Pythagoras theorem for dividing a square piece of paper into five equal parts. The way we frame the question when we do the activity, then it is an even higher level question. Because first you do not know what is it that you must use to solve this problem. At that time, the mind will try to explore various approaches. Now, that is when you are doing critical thinking. It is an even higher level problem. Solving such a problem requires critical thinking, which means examining an issue from various points of view. Then, evaluating each point of view from the point of view of a reference and then deciding whether this is correct or not and abandoning it and then going to the next one. This whole process of thinking is called critical thinking. And finally, coming up with such a problem to test Pythagoras theorem and its application is itself a very interesting thing. So, coming up with such questions can be regarded as creativity. That is how using an activity you can distinguish between the various levels and the scholar must know that he or she is operating at application, critical thinking or creativity. These are higher levels of thinking. Very often what happens is the scholars are not aware of these aspects at all. This is actually bad because it is like an athlete. If an athlete wants to be a good, he or she must have some knowledge of physical fitness. He or she may not have the same knowledge as her coach or medical doctor has. But some level of this thing, awareness and knowledge about various aspects of the body should be there. Unfortunately, this similar knowledge or awareness is not there in research scholars about thinking which he or she has to do a lot. So, one of the purposes of this discussion is to make the person aware of what kind of thinking a research scholar must do. Now, is there any point in doing this kind of discussion at all? Because if thinking is basically a gift, then there is not much point in discussing this topic except for some information. However, recent research in psychology has shown as this slide shows that there is a significant element of skill in thinking. That means it can be developed by practice to a great extent. For example, Peter Medever, Nobel Prize winner has said that creativity is beyond analysis is a romantic illusion we must now outgrow. Another psychologist has said after research on creativity, creativity is a skill which can be developed by practice. Conscious application is needed, not the vagaries of inspiration in order to achieve creative output. So, things like that. So, we must appreciate that thinking is not something that is only a gift. There is an element of gift and there is an element of skill. So, in our discussion, we aim at developing the skill. So, in fact, every discussion is followed by prescription. How do you develop the skill? Some of the prescriptions that we give will be clear shortly. One aspect that we need to discuss is what is the difference between intelligence and creativity? This is one issue that is discussed in this lectures. So, for instance, this point is dramatically illustrated by these two cases. The first person, Marilyn Wossamant is a lady who showed a high score of 228, the highest ever on a particular intelligence test. But what is her achievement? What is she doing in life? She is merely a question and answer columnist for Parade Magazine. The same test was conducted on Richard Feynman, who is a Nobel Prize winner. And whose IQ turned out to be 122 on the same intelligence scale. But he is a Nobel Prize winner and recognized as the last American genius. So, we need to understand the difference between intelligence and creativity. What is the difference? So, intelligence and creativity are not the same things. Intelligence in a domain means the ability to function at a high level in that domain. Thus, a typical student in IIT with a high grade point average would typically fit into this. The kind of examination system we have. But creativity involves asking new questions and altering the domain. This is the most important thing about creativity. Do you ask new questions and as a result of your work, has the domain changed? Because of your work, has electrical engineering become any different? Any such activity, thinking activity which results in altering the domain is a creative activity. So, one can be highly intelligent and rigid, non-creative or lacking in the kind of single-minded passion that drives creators. So, what is creativity? Psychologists have tried to define. If you want to develop some skill, you must have at least to some level of precision in the definition. So, creativity is the ability to look at the same thing as everyone else and think something different. So, in the course what we do is you take some examples of this and illustrate how this definition applies in certain creative outputs. For example, you must appreciate the fact that creativity is not limited to any art, any specific type of science or engineering or arts. It is a very general phenomenon. Here is an example of a creative piece, description of attitudes with the help of roses and thorns. Now everybody has seen roses and everybody has seen thorns. Now somebody has thought, can you use just these two words and distinguish between several attitudes that we come across. So, optimistic attitude means everything is full of roses. Pessimistic attitude, everything is full of thorns. Realistic, well think you have roses and you have thorns. Strike, does not really matter whether it is roses or thorns. Humane, roses for you and roses for me. Selfish, roses for me and thorns for you. Sadistic, thorns for you and your blood for me and divine, roses for you and your thorns for me. So, now you can see, in fact I found this particular piece stuck in an ATM. But it is a very nice illustration of creative piece. It is the same looking at the same thing as everyone else but think something different. That is what creativity is all about. So, let us look at some methods by which you can develop creativity. So, here are a few prescriptions. Looking at the world in terms of analogies, this is one major method of creative thinking. Many new discoveries are done using analogical thinking. Another method is to learn about different ways to solve a problem. Here is a quotation which I like very much, which all research scholars must remember. If you have 10 hours for chopping a tree, spend 5 hours sharpening the axe. If your thinking is not sharp, you try to solve a big problem, the end result will not be significant. Research scholars do not understand how to spend their time even if they have it. The point is the time should be spent in sharpening the thinking. And these are some of the ways of sharpening your thinking. If you spend time in the first one, one and half years, two years in just sharpening the thinking. Not necessary to solve a research problem. The problem you can solve in two years time. It does not take much time to solve a problem. You will appreciate if your thinking is sharp. You can cut a problem very quickly and originally. But if your thinking is not sharp, then however long you take, it is like chopping a tree. You have a blunt axe, any number of times you hit, you will not make much of a dent. Therefore, there is a strong reason for developing your thinking and following some of these prescriptions. For example, analogies. You take an example. This topic is discussed in detail in the course. Analogies. Solar system and atomic structure. The discovery of the atomic structure is an excellent example of discovery by analogy. So, scientists saw that in outer space you have planets revolving around the sun. If that can be the model to describe what do you see in outer world, why cannot such a model apply also in the case of the micro world? In fact, that is how the idea of electrons revolving around nucleus originated. It is exactly analogous, the atomic structure and the solar system. Then there are many other examples. For example, Brownian motion of dust particles and electrons in a crystal. How do the electrons move in a crystal? They just move like dust particles in air, which is a Brownian motion. You have a large number of such analogies. So, these analogies are discussed to drive home this point. Different ways of calculating pi is one example. This is the kind of thing that in fact, a research scholar must read. There is a book which is titled 100 different proofs of Pythagoras theorem. Now, we never find such things prescribed in a course for reading. Whereas, this is what is the kind of reading that a research scholar must do to sharpen the thinking. Different ways of doing the same thing. Here in the course, we discuss an example of pi. Three different ways of calculating pi. So, you can have a geometrical approach of calculating pi. That is the first point on the slide. You can have a series, infinite series approach of calculating pi. You can have a statistical approach of calculating pi. That is a Buffon's Needle experiment. So, I will not be able to discuss though. It is very interesting to see how people have tried so many different approaches of calculating pi. The point here is not the calculation of pi, but the different approaches of doing the same thing. That is why, in fact, one of the persons well known, Aurobindo, who is philosopher as well as who had interest in education said this about education. Education is not about learning diverse subjects, but about learning diverse ways to the same subject. So, in fact, as teachers also, we need to see whether we are trying to follow this dictum in our own teaching. Do we discuss at least a few ideas in different ways? Then, the topic of problem solving is discussed in great detail. So, various strategies of problem solving are there. The first important thing about a problem is to represent it. What are the various ways you can represent a problem? Then, logical thinking is a method of solving problems. So, this logical thinking is discussed in detail. Then, dividing a problem into sub-problems. So, these strategies are discussed with some case studies. So, for example, techniques of representation. So, you have changing the statement of the problem or reformulation, symbolic representation, representation in the form of table, list or matrix, representation in the form of graph, trees, wind diagrams and other diagrams. So, you take two or three examples of each type and discuss in detail. For example, let us look at this reformulation which is a very powerful method of solving problems. Every research scholar has to go on formulating and reformulating his or her problem so that it becomes solvable. In fact, the statement of the problem when you write your thesis may not be the same as the statement that you start with. So, this one has to do. So, here is a very simple but very interesting example. One of the companies in Japan wanted to increase the productivity of their company. So, they thought they could involve the workers in their company in getting some good suggestions. So, they gave this question to all the workers. Tell us how can you become more productive and said that if you have any suggestions, you please drop them in a drop box. To their surprise, they found very few suggestions and they did not know why the workers are not responding. So, one of the persons in the management, he did a silent investigation and found the workers were not responding because they felt this is a tactic of the management to extract more work from the workers. So, you involve them and try to get some suggestions and then you make them work more. So, best thing is not to participate in this. Then one person in the management hit upon a very interesting idea. He just changed the question. He said, let us ask them how can you make your job easier? This is a practical thing that has been done. And now, as they expected, they had hundreds of suggestions from workers because everybody wants to make the job easy. The point is that the company is not going to reduce the time of work. You are going to work for the same time and if your job is made easier, indirectly you are asking the same thing how can you become more productive in a given time and they actually implemented some of these suggestions and the productivity of the company did go up. So, how a problem can be restated for solution? Supposing you have done an experiment and collected a large amount of data, you must organize in a tabular form. I have very rarely seen a research scholar reporting to you a large number of readings in a nice tabular compact form. Now, what is the importance of representation in a tabular form? If you want to discern any pattern in the data, it is very easy. Also, note that there are different types of tables available to represent the data. For example, in this table, what is shown here is the result of adhesion testing of a certain metal on a substrate. So, you have one variable associated with the substrate here, that is P plus P N or N plus and then another variable associated with the substrate is the area of the substrate. You have three variables, three values of the area, 0.5 centimeter square, 1 centimeter square and 2 centimeter square. For each condition of the substrate and each area, you do two experiments, experiment one and experiment two and then take the readings and now you tabulate this data and out of this data, you want to discern some pattern. How the adhesion changes with the substrate condition and area? Now, the same data, if it is cast in a slightly different form in this table where the one variable doping is running vertically and the other variable area is running horizontally, then the pattern is much more easy to discern. So, things such as this are the points that are discussed in this particular problem solving session in the course. The same thing, if you represent in a graphical form, it is even more powerful. The same data is represented here in graphical form. You see here that the x-axis is conditions on the substrate, the y-axis is the adhesion and the values corresponding to three different areas are adjacent values here plotted against the condition of the substrate and the two values obtained in repetitions of the experiment are plotted one above the other. So, from this data, in fact, you can see that for certain conditions of the substrate, the dispersion between two readings is very, very large, two repetitions of the same experiment. Whereas, for some other conditions, the readings are very reproducible. So, the amount of information that is contained in the graph, how the adhesion varies with area. For example, in these two cases here, the adhesion seems to be decreasing steadily as you increase the area. Whereas, for other conditions in the substrate, you cannot discern any such trend. So, things like this are very nicely brought out in a graph. So, in fact, a student, a research scholar must always try to see if any data he or she has, can you plot it in some form of graph or the other. This point is dramatically brought out by the next problem. Supposing, the problem is that two classes are going on side by side. You have say approximately the same number of students and the same level of students. You want to decide as an observer, objective observer standing outside in which classroom the teaching learning process is going on better. This is the problem, suppose. Now, this is one of the ways of solving this problem. What you do is you plot the activities going on in a classroom on a graph. So, here, for instance, all the activities are plotted on the y-axis. Student action, student question, student response, teacher question, teacher response, teacher talk, using chalkboard, using charts and so on. All activities are on the y-axis. And as a function of time, what is happening is plotted. There is a particular arrangement that is used for these activities. Activities of the teacher are close to the baseline. That is the time, because a teacher is always active in the class. So, that really doesn't mean so much. A teacher has to use the chalkboard. A teacher has to talk. The important things, points that really show whether learning is going on is things such as whether teacher is asking question, are the students responding, are the students asking question. So, for instance, if students are asking question, definitely it shows a much higher level of involvement in the teaching learning process than in a class where students are not asking questions. So, whatever is rare, but which shows a better quality of teaching learning process is plotted further away from the baseline. That is the way all these activities are arranged. And now, supposing you plot a graph for the two classrooms, the graph will look something like this. So, here, for instance, for a certain amount of time, the teacher is talking and then teacher has asked a question. Student is responding. Then the teacher has started using the chalkboard. Student has asked a question. The teacher is talking and so on. Now, you compare the graphs for the two classrooms. Whichever graph, whichever classroom has a higher frequency and higher amplitude of the graph, that classroom is better in terms of the teaching learning process. Why? Because a higher frequency means different activities are taking place. On the other hand, a higher amplitude means student involvement is much better in that classroom. So, the point, this is an illustration of a creative method of representing the data in a graphical form so as to compare two different situations. So, graph is a very powerful method of solving problems. So, in fact, teachers, one of the things that students can do, for instance, you find a new textbook or any other book that has come to library. You can always pick up and just look at all the figures and see what are the kind of graphs which are there. This is one exercise that a student can do. To read a book, just see all the figures. You might find something very interesting. In fact, different areas of engineering, some figures or graphs are known by the people who have proposed. I know that in electric engineering, for instance, you have what is called a Smith chart. This is a graph of a certain data about microwave behavior of certain components and that is used extensively in design of microwave circuits. So, like that, you can see how graphs play a role in solving problems. Then problem finding. In this, we have discussed topics such as what are the different problem solving versus problem finding, how to formulate a problem. How do you decide whether a problem is worth pursuing for research? What are the attributes of research problem? Then how do you get problems, good problems to work on, sources of research problems? It is said that finding a problem is as much a scholar's responsibility as that of the guide. A problem must spring from a researcher's mind like a plant springing from its own seed. Very often, however, what happens is that research scholar is watering the plant, watering the seed, that is shown by the guide or most of our research is in that mode. It is the guide who finds a problem and then gives it to the scholar and the scholar is watering it and developing it. But if the problem itself develops in the researcher's mind, there is nothing like it. That is what should be the aim of research. Now, what are the attributes of research problems? I am discussing topics in very briefly. I am not giving too much of explanation, but these are the kind of issues that are necessary for a researcher. So, there are several attributes of a research problem such as difficulty, usefulness, originality. Is the problem interesting? That means, does it deny commonly held assumptions? The significance or impact of the problem that the problem is likely to have if you solve it. And then cost, equipment and cooperation, etc. These are the issues which a research scholar must assess when he or she wants to decide whether a particular thing should be pursued for research. In literature survey, for example, we discussed things such as why literature survey, what is it that you must read, how much to read? This is one of the problem students have. How much to read and how to start? So, do you start from 1970 or do you start from 1990? Whereas, what the research scholar should do is he or she must start from 2006 backwards. That is the way of reading. You start with the most recent papers in an area if you want to know what are the status of the work. So, things like this which are very practical issues, but which many research scholars are not aware when they start research. How to read? How to read a paper? It is itself a skill. If you have to read 100 papers during your research, it is not the same as reading a textbook. Reading a research paper is very different. So, in fact, there are few guidelines which if a research scholar follows, the reading will become less stressful. You can do a lot of reading. You do not read word by word. No research paper is read word by word. That is the way we might have in reading textbooks, but not research papers. Research papers had to be read line by line or paragraph by paragraph, right? Or figures by figures. That is the way you can quickly scan and so on. So, in fact, some practical guidelines on how to read a paper and how to take notes. Note-taking also is very, very important for research scholar. Let me discuss a few things on experimental and modeling skills. What are the type of things that one can discuss? Scientific method, design of an experiment, the need for precision, type of errors and documentation. For example, let us look at the scientific method. All of us, we use the word that you want to be scientific in your thinking and so on often. But what are the essential elements of scientific thinking? So, what is non-scientific thinking and what is scientific thinking, right? This is one topic that is covered in detail. For instance, intuition or common sense is a non-scientific thinking, right? In what way a scientific thinking is different? Scientific results can be counter-intuitive. That is a very important thing about scientific method we must understand. So, what is it there in the method that can lead to counter-intuitive results, okay? So, basically, a scientific method involves the following steps, observation, hypothesis, verification and generalization. The two key things in scientific method is the hypothesis and the experiment. So, hypothesis is a product of intuition. But hypothesis alone cannot constitute a completely scientific thinking, right? Verification of the hypothesis is very, very important. So, while a lot of creativity and imagination is involved in formulating a hypothesis, an equal amount of intellectual effort should go on in designing an experiment to verify the hypothesis. Let me illustrate this with a simple example of the scientific method, how it can lead to counter-intuitive results. In the West, obesity is a problem, okay? 50% people are obese. So, a lot of research is going on in trying to find out why the obesity is there and how it can be controlled. So, a very interesting experiment that is reported widely in this connection is the simple following experiment. In this experiment, what was done was that they took a sample of about 200 people. 100 of these were obese and 100 of these had average weight. They divided this group of 200 people into two groups of 100 each. Each group of 100 consisted of 50 obese people and 50 average weight people. So, group one of 100 students, 100 people and another group of 100 people. Now, group one, so both groups are identical in terms of the distribution. Both have obese as well as average weight people. To group one, they gave one sandwich to eat for each of the members of group one. And they said, if you feel that one sandwich is not enough for you, you can always go to the room which is about 100 meters from the particular room in which they were given the sandwiches. And you can fetch an additional sandwich, one or two sandwiches as you want. They are all kept there. They did the same thing with group two, except that group two, they gave three sandwiches to eat. And they said, look, if you are not interested in eating, please don't eat. You don't have to eat all the sandwiches. You eat as much as you want. If you want more, you can always go to the room and get. And then they found very interestingly that the average number of sandwiches eaten by the average weight people in group one was two sandwiches, which means on average every average weight person went to the room which was 100 meters away, fetched a sandwich and ate. Whereas the obese people on average ate no more than one sandwich. They never went to the room and fetched anything. Now contrast that with the observation of the group number two. The group number two, all the obese weight people ate all the three sandwiches. Whereas the average weight people ate on average only two sandwiches. They didn't eat the third one. Now this experiment showed very conclusively that the obese weight people are stimulated to eat more because of external factors. This is the most important conclusion that comes from here. That the obese weight people are stimulated to eat more because of external factors. In fact, their eating habits are governed by external factors, not by internal factors such as hunger. So there is a lack of control on this particular thing. So external stimulation plays a very significant role. On the average weight people on the other hand, there is an internal control. If they want more, they will take more. But if they don't need, they will not eat more. On the other hand, the obese weight person availability of food will make them eat more. So one of the reasons for obesity is ready availability of food. So now this experiment was very important because it gave some future, some further leads as to what you must investigate in an obese weight person. What is the cause of obesity? Now the result of this experiment is somewhat counter-intuitive because people normally think that obese weight people eat more they feel more hungry. So they feel that the cause of obesity is internal to the person. But that is not true. So you can, this particular example illustrates how the fact, you feel that the hunger is cause for obesity is your hypothesis. Now you have to test the hypothesis. Now this is an experiment which can test whether really the internal factor is cause for obesity or external factor. So how to design an experiment? This is a very simple experiment. A very elegant experiment to prove or disprove the hypothesis. So that is how in any scientific study, design of an experiment is itself a creative job. Apart from the creativity involved in hypothesis, how to hypothesize from observations. So hypothesis is an imaginative preconception or an inspired guess about some particularly interesting aspect of the world. Every discovery begins as a hypothesis. So creativity is a hypothesis in scientific method. Creativity is also there in the experiment which is the act undertaken to verify a hypothesis. So in fact then that is how you lay the groundwork for the experimental skills, why experimental skills are important. Now we also discuss a little bit on theories and laws, right? To appreciate where exactly is the creativity in a theory. So here I would just state that what is a theory? It is a set of a statements explaining one or more laws. The next part of the sentence is very important. Usually including one indirect concept needed to explain the relationship. A theory is a set of statements explaining one or more laws. Usually including one indirect concept needed to explain the relationship. This indirect concept is the creative contribution of the person who is proposing a theory. A simple example, you take Faraday's theory. Faraday has given, tried to explain why is there force of attraction or repulsion between charges. Now what is the indirect concept that is used? The lines of force. Using the lines of force you can explain how north and south poles they attract or you can introduce the concept of a magnetic field. You can introduce the concept of an electric field and so on. These are indirect concepts which are introduced to understand the force of attraction or repulsion. So like this one should identify whenever one is reading about theories what is the key thing there which is an indirect concept that is being used to explain the relationship. And therefore in your own research also if you say that you are proposing a theory or you have given a new model what you must emphasize in your paper is what is that indirect concept that you are introducing for developing understanding of the relationship, right? So if you have all these understanding then the way you write a paper it will be very very different from the way an average paper is written. The same work is being reported but with a much deeper understanding of all the issues. Now I will discuss for a few minutes the communication skills. The two important dimensions of communication understanding an agreement and effectiveness and efficiency. The first important thing is that the speaker, the communicator must speak in a way in which the audience understands, okay? So now you have four possibilities that is you can have understanding or misunderstanding and you can have agreement and disagreement. So all possible combinations. So correct understanding but disagreement but very often what happens is there is a misunderstanding and therefore an agreement or a disagreement, right? This is the bad part of communication. Normally our agreement or disagreement is not based on understanding, right? It can be based on misunderstanding. Now that is what one must avoid. So how can one communicate so that there is no misunderstanding on the part of audience? It does not matter whether it is agreement or disagreement, right? But misunderstanding should not be there. Let me illustrate this with a couple of examples. An example of ineffective communication. This is an email sent by one of our scholars, okay? Sir, my employer wants a letter about the completion of my thesis written by you. Now it is not clear whether the thesis was written by me or whether the letter has to be written by me. In fact, it clearly shows that probably the thesis has been written by me. Otherwise it will not be understood correctly. This is ineffective communication. Now what is the problem here? It is not vocabulary. It is the arrangement of the words. This is the most common reason for ineffective communication. How the words have to be arranged? So we take several examples and we give assignments. You correct, for example, an assignment is that you correct this statement so that it makes sense, right? What is intended there? Let us take the example of inefficient communication. In fact, research has shown that the first time a research scholar writes a paper, it can be reduced to almost one third of the length by an experienced communicator. How? Some examples are there here. You normally tend to use too many words to describe a word, a single word. A considerable amount of, actually the whole phrase can be replaced by simply much. The given data, you can only use the word data. There is no need to say the given data. In the event that, which means if, all that you mean is if, deposited precipitate, every precipitate is deposited. So you do not have to use deposited precipitate, right? It is just precipitate. Another example, the nature of Hoyle's work is always of a provocative kind. What you want to say is Hoyle's work is always provocative, okay? So you can, from these examples, you can see that there is a lot of scope for reducing the length of your sentences and making the communication much more efficient, okay? So some assignments are given, you give a paragraph of inefficient communication and then you try to, the exercise involves not reducing, not increasing the number of words, using the same number of words but you must rewrite the same paragraph which makes better sense, okay? Let us take oral communication. I am, I just want to discuss a few points which normally escape the attention of many even good communicators, okay? Which I think if you know in advance, you can improve your communication tremendously. This is a result of research. See, in oral communication, what is it that makes impact? Very interestingly, the nonverbal aspects of the speaker make 55% impact on the audience. This is something which is very counterintuitive. Nonverbal aspects of the speaker make 55% impact on the audience. This includes gesture and facial expression. Then 38% of the impact is dependent on vocal aspects which include pause, stress, intonation and the quality of voice. And the words which are chosen by the speaker only make 7% impact, okay? This is a very interesting statistic. So if you want to develop communication, what it means is first you must bother about nonverbal aspects that is the body language. First you must feel relaxed when you are communicating. This is the first important thing for learning to communicate. It is not the language that is very, very interesting. It is not the language. Then next important thing you must bother about is do you give proper pauses and do you vary the length of the sentences and so on. And of course, is your stress appropriate? Many times you have difficulty in communication because your accent is not understood by the audience. In fact, I have personal experience of all these aspects myself. I went to teach in American University. I taught a subject which I have been teaching in IIT earlier and I have got high rating from students. I was surprised that in a few, first few hours the students which consisted of people from varied places such as Chinese, then people from Middle East and so on, I found all of them straining themselves to understand what exactly I was speaking. So I was surprised. So after the second class I just asked them, are you following what I am saying? They said, yeah, kind of. They are following. They said, what is the difficulty you have? I think I am using grammatically correct English. Any problem with that? They said, yeah, but your accent is very difficult to follow. This is very, very important, interesting. They said the accent is very difficult to follow. Then I realized how much important the accent is. For instance, as an Indian we would say, R-E-S-E-A-R-C-H is research. Whereas if you are speaking in America, you must probably say research. That is what is important. You must prolong the initial part of the word and shorten the next part. Small things such as this are very, very important for the audience to understand you properly. So supposing we find that we are not making an impact on the audience, then we need to analyze our communication from this point of view. Only then we will appreciate. Many times it happens that we have strong accents which originate from our own mother tongue. And that is what is responsible for the difficulty in communication, not our language. Even body language may be alright. But this accent is such that people are not able to follow. So things such as this are stressed in the common portion of the course on communication. So another important thing, attention span of the audience. Research shows that 20 minutes is the span on average. That is why most of the talks in conferences and so on are scheduled for 20 minutes span. However, all our classes are 50 minutes to 1 hour. Now, how do you hold the attention of students for 50 minutes to 1 hour? And that too for 40 lectures. So therefore it calls for some special skills on the part of the teacher. So research shows that the attention span can be increased by adding variety to the talk. Such as interaction, diagrams, audio visual, pace of speech, pitch of voice, length of sentences, pauses, repetition, gesturing with hands and humor. So all these are important things. Even in a research scholar can use all these methods to improve the communication. So this is very, very important. If you are going to make a 20 minute presentation in a conference, if you make that 20 minute presentation effectively, believe it, people, the entire audience listens to you. In 20 minutes, you know, you can get into the minds of so many people. The research scholar does not understand the significance of oral communication. If you are an effective oral communicator, in a conference, you can, in 20 minutes time, you can be known to such a wide audience. So we give them some prescription on how to improve their writing and oral skills. So for instance, one prescription is read the editorial of newspaper daily. This is for improving the language. Read the editorial of the newspaper aloud. This is for improving oral communication. So daily you take the editorial and read it aloud. It does not matter whether people are around you. You do not have to read it to somebody. Once one student said, sir, the prescription is good but it is difficult to follow. Because if I am alone in my room and reading it aloud, my neighbor would think I am mad. What is this guy doing? Then I pointed out that actually supposing you are practicing music. You are practicing vocal music. What do you do? It is not necessary for people to be around. You just sing on your own. It does not look mad. So what is wrong in, if you want to improve your communication, you do the same thing. So similarly writing regularly and so on. These are some prescriptions. This is one of the very hilarious passages which we normally give, which we give to the students to rewrite. Now I will focus on a few minutes on the management skills. Where is the time management in research? We cannot say go and discover the second law of thermodynamics in the afternoon. But if we arrange our schedule so as to set aside time for thinking and experimenting, we put ourselves in the way of discovering something. So the time management in research actually involves when you are trying to find a problem or develop a hypothesis, you must spend 24 hours on the job. 24 hours you must spend on this. However, now the next part, working out a new idea, once you have hit upon an idea, working out a new idea requires much routine work. And to this part of investigation, we can apply efficiency methods, which means really the management of time in terms of arranging your activities and so on, that part can be applied to the routine aspects of research which are very, very important, which can be more than 50%, right? For example, doing a large number of experiments, collecting data and so on. These kind of things, you can list a large number of activities, which is what we do in this lecture. And many of these things, for that you can apply the time management principle. But for discovering a new idea, it is very difficult to say what is the, how you can manage your time. The point is you have to think all the time. Until you get a new idea, you have to think all the time. So that is a few points about time management. Stress management. What is the origin of stress? One of the origins of stress I have said is relationship between student and the guide. That is one of the major reasons for stress in many research scholars. The second most important reason for stress is persistence and the ability to manage boredom and frustration are crucial for research work. What happens is in research, you have to concentrate on one idea for a very, very long time. This is the singular reason for stress in research scholars, right? So monotony and repetitiveness of concentrating on the same idea for an extended period of time. So one must learn how to do this and reduce the stress. You cannot eliminate it, but how can you reduce? You can concentrate for a long time and yet how can you be less stressful? So some prescriptions for that are given. So another origin of stress is dealing with criticism, rejection of papers and so on. And also this is a very interesting observation that many research scholars have made. So the statement is I work alone in a lab full of people, all research students all working alone, okay? So there are many people working in the laboratory but there is no technical discussion among them, right? They may even play games together. They might occasionally go out for a coffee but they never discuss their technical problem, right? This is one of the reasons in fact which guides can try to see how they can manage this particular situation better, how the few research scholars who may be working in the laboratory can interact in relation to the research because this is also recognized as one of the reasons for stress. People feel lonely all the time in research even though they may be together. Then ethics, professional ethics, research like all good things in life is never smooth sailing. In fact, that is the origin of unethical conduct. When you think smoothly you tend to take shortcuts, okay? So for example, plagiarism. So you lift ideas and you don't cite references. Now what all constitutes plagiarism that is discussed in the one lecture on professional ethics. Then credit to co-workers, authorship and acknowledgement. Many times the students have this problem that how the order of the authors is to be decided in an article. How it is decided? When do you become eligible for an authorship and when your work is only eligible for acknowledgement at the end of a manuscript, right? So these are the issues that a person must understand. These are discussed in professional ethics. So we will conclude our discussion of the course. So during research the feelings of exploration, excitement, challenge, involvement and passion are frequent and one gets an enormous feeling of achievement on the award of research degree. So that is one of the reasons why people should take research. It is a really exhilarating experience and challenging. You go through depression and elevation and all this. Research makes you an independent and organized thinker, a good communicator and stress time manager. If you are really taking to research the way you should, then you are definitely a much improved personality at the end of your PhD. Finally, an important point, education is not about learning diverse subjects but about learning diverse ways to the same subject. This is the point that a research scholar must understand about education.