 We now have the inaugural lecture or a keynote talk by Professor Suhas P. Sukhatmey. Yesterday evening, late evening actually, Professor Fatah called me up and said that he has to take care of the press meet and that will you please introduce Professor Sukhatmey just before his talk. And he thought that it is a very easy thing for me to do, but when I started looking at it, turned out to be a very difficult thing. So I put myself a quiz as Professor Sukhatmey quite often did and learned something from those advertisement tricks that people play, that small write up and say complete in some ten words. So I decided that look, if I have to describe Professor Sukhatmey in as few words as possible which words will I use and I have reduced that list to the following. Teacher, researcher, experimenter, administrator, author, learner, mentor and friend. I hope I am right. Many of you know Professor Sukhatmey was a teacher here, joined us in 1965 as an assistant professor, grew throughout his career at IIT Bombay and retired in 2000 as the director of IIT Bombay. He was our director from 1995 to 2000. As a teacher he taught many courses, heat transfer and solar energy being his forte, but he has taught thermodynamics, he has taught I think instrumentation and control sometimes, he has taught design of heat exchange equipment and I am sure I have missed a few. He was among the first teacher researchers at IIT Bombay, produced a number of PhD scholars, many of them are or have been teachers and professors in their own right at many places all over the world, worked both numerically but set up a very nice experimental heat transfer laboratory where experiments were done on combined free and forced convection, radiation, material measurement of thermo physical properties, compact heat exchangers, enance surfaces for condensation and other application. He has been an able administrator, he was one of the young heads of department in 1973 that of mechanical engineering, later on became the deputy director and in 1995 took over our directors position. But apart from this during the first 50 years of IIT, he has been one of those people whose stamp has been seen on our academic processes, curricular structure, grading systems and many other academic administrative system. His administrative abilities were used not only by IIT Bombay but after his retirement even by the department of Atomic Energy. He was the chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board from 2000 to 2005 and handled the safety issues and many other safety administrative issues pertaining to nuclear power plants and other similar facilities. He has also been an author, I think his heat transfer book published in 1971 was perhaps the first Indian book for undergraduate heat transfer studies particularly in mechanical engineering. Later he wrote a book on solar energy, I think both these books are in the third or fourth edition. What is not known is that he has also written a book on the brain drain and of course he has been authored many other articles, research papers and review reports. His reports on the placement and location of alumni of IIT Bombay where talk of the administrative circuit and academic circuit in the late 80s and mid 90s. I have been associated him with him first as a student and then as a colleague and I also know that he is a learner. Any new technique, any new scheme, any new research effort, he will spend time, learn either on his own or with a few of us. But I think the most important characteristic of Professor Sukhatme is that he has been a super mentor although he himself has been a teacher, researcher, experimenter, mentor, administrator, author and learner. He has been a mentor and he has mentored a few generation of young people and I am not an exception in becoming good teachers, researchers, experimenters, administrators, authors and learners. I think that is enough about Professor Sukhatme. I now request Professor Sukhatme to deliver his inaugural talk, the title of which he himself has kept neat and simple doing research. Professor Sukhatme. Good morning everybody, I have lectured all my life starting from 1965 on subjects like heat transfer, thermodynamics, energy, solar energy, etcetera, etcetera. Sometimes to class sizes of 15, sometimes 20, sometimes 80, sometimes 100, sometimes even more. I have lectured in the distance mode also once in a while, but this is the first time that I am lecturing to such a large audience and such a large virtual audience because this studio where the recording is going on has a few people. But I know that or at least I hope I think I am right, there are quite a few thousand all over the country watching this lecture. So, it does feel always strange in the distance mode to say well right in front there is hardly anybody, but really there are a whole lot of people watching you. Let me first of all say that you know it is very nice that I received such a nice introduction from Professor Gayathanday and it is very nice to be the opening lecturer in this workshop. So, my greetings to all of you, my best wishes to all of you who are listening. I said at the beginning that this is a large virtual audience to which I am speaking, there is something more about this audience which I need to define and that is not only is it a large virtual audience, but it is a large specialized virtual audience, it is an audience consisting of people, men and women who almost all of whom have bachelor's degrees in engineering or technology or science, most of whom are it is in more than 90 percent probably are in that category. Quite a few have master's degrees in science MSC, MTEX or MES, there are a few PhDs also sitting in the audience who are watching me and there are also I am told some postgraduate students in the audience. So, that is the kind of audience I am speaking to. It is a large virtual audience, but of a specialized kind in the teaching profession or wanting to be in the teaching profession or in the teaching profession and wanting to move up in the teaching profession and that is why the topic of this workshop, the topic is an introduction to research methodologies because quite a few of you would be hoping to do PhDs in the years to come. In many cases the PhD is not something is a prerequisite for you to move up the ladder also. So, that is the audience to which I am speaking this morning. Now, one of the first things one does in any such situation is to define the scope of what one is going to speak on. The title may be general, I have used the general title saying doing research, but really what I am going to speak about is doing research towards doing a PhD, I am going to restrict myself to that. That means I am assuming that a whole lot of you who are listening to me want to do a PhD sometime in your career and therefore research has done for a PhD that is what I am trying to focus on. So, the first thing one always says in such a situation is well what does a PhD, what does it involve to do a PhD? The first thing is one should define or at least from some regulations take a sentence saying what do you expect from somebody doing a PhD. So, you know I took this from the University of London regulations, I could take it from many University, most universities say the same thing in different ways, but it is a very important and a very concise sentence which describes what one wants to do for a PhD. A thesis for the PhD must form a distinctive contribution to the knowledge of the subject and afford evidence of originality shown by the discovery of new facts and or the evidence of independent critical power. This is a very carefully constructed sentence and it is really what defines what we look for in a good PhD or in a PhD not just a good PhD. Some element of originality which adds to the knowledge of the subject, some discovery of a new fact or the evidence of having interpreted what is already known in some independent and important critical manner that is what we look for in a PhD. Now, this is what we look for, so before I proceed further let me say the following. I have already identified that many of you want to do a PhD are interested in the methodology the process of doing a PhD and it is also an important prerequisite for moving up, nothing like having a prerequisite to give that little bit of push to a person. So the first and foremost thing to which one wants to say about doing a PhD is the research associated with it is not to be treated as an obstacle that an obstacle which has to be overcome rather the research that you are doing you have to look upon it as a challenge as a means to improving your professional skills, so that you can do your job better whether your job you may be a lecturer or a reader and assistant professor or professor whatever it is you can do that job better as you go forward that is the way to look upon doing a PhD do not take it up saying it is an obstacle I have to somehow get around it that way you are taking making the first shall I say not making the right move towards doing a PhD well. So one does not do a PhD and forget about the research one has done rather one does the research for a PhD, so that that research has a positive influence on the way one handles one's duties later on in one's career that is the way to look upon a PhD. So whole lot easier if you look upon the PhD as that is what your aim is rather than as I said as an obstacle now before I proceed further let me let me give the outline of my lecture I am going to proceed as follows I am going to first as the introduction then I am going to talk about the research process or the research procedure for doing a PhD and that is really the main part of my lecture that second topic then I am going to talk about the characteristics needed for a promotion for doing research I am going to talk about developing communication skills and I am going to talk briefly about the issue of plagiarism then I will conclude with some remarks to sum up what I have said during this lecture that is the way I am going to proceed. Now let me say at the beginning also one thing that I am touching on all these topics what is to follow later are lectures which will deal with all these topics in much more detail. So I am going to be touching on that like the research process how one does literature searches how one reads papers or later on when one does one experimental or theoretical work how one goes about doing it how one plans one's research how one plans experiments how one writes a thesis how one presents one's thesis all these are topics for the which later lecturers are going to take up in much more detail. So it is not that you know when I say this it is done I am really going to touch on them for a few minutes each so you are going to get much more detail from all the experts who are to follow today tomorrow and over the next few days that this workshop is conducted. So now let us move on to the with the lecture and as I said the outline I have just pointed out to you I have just finished the introduction that is topic one and we move on to the main topic that is the research process for doing a PhD that is what we are moving on to doing what I have done is I have put the research process in terms of a number of steps and I am going to take time over each step to say what I mean by it how one goes about it and so on that is the way we are going to approach it. The process I am suggesting is for a typical problem in engineering or science I want to say that at the beginning it is not a process which one perhaps may adopt for let us say a thesis in the humanities or in the arts the process may be entirely different but now I am talking to engineering college teachers who are teaching engineering or science and so therefore the process that I am describing is specifically for such teachers if they were to do a PhD what is the kind of process that they would follow. So it is typical what I am saying is generally typical for what is for engineering and science. I also want to emphasize that there is nothing that is rigid about this process it is a process that I feel is in general explains the way we proceed but I cannot say that everyone has to follow exactly this and go in that order it is an indicative process that is also important. I do not want somebody to say and say I attended that lecture and Professor Sukathme said after step 3, step 4 and I have to do step 4 that is not the idea the idea is the kind of indicative process which moves forward. The other comment the third comment I want to make about what is going to follow is it is a process in which you have as a student you are the student doing the PhD as a student you have got to be putting feedback into that process all the time. As you are moving along you are experiencing the process you may want to put feedback and alter some of the decisions you have taken earlier. So it is not a process saying step 1 complete, step 2 complete it is a process in which you go forward and then at some point you may say well I had said thought of doing this at step 2 maybe I need to reread that or rethink that. So it is a process in which feedback plays an important role that is also important. So now let us take up the steps one by one and there are number of steps I will go through each and talk a little about each of them. The first step is which I have put down is identify a research problem broadly in a general area of interest this is what I have put down. Now let us say you know since I am a teacher of heat transfer fluid mechanics and subjects in energy naturally most of the examples I will take will be from these areas but it does not mean whether you are an electrical engineer or a mechanical engineer or a chemical engineer that you are going to do anything different. So the examples I give are examples which relate to what I am concerned. So what do I mean by this identify a general problem broadly in the general area of interest first of all the setting what is it we are work you are a person probably in the late 20s or 30s you have done teaching for a few years you are in the audience listening to me you want to do a PHD that is the setting. Now an important step in doing a PHD is to have a guide a supervisor if for instance you are in an engineering college or an institute attached to some university. One possibility is that your guide or your supervisor would be one of the senior professors in your institute or your college or your university that is one possibility. A second possibility is you may be deputed by your college to some other institute like an IIT or an NIT or the IISC or some other university where there is somebody who will serve as your guide some reasonably senior person who is who will serve as your guide a supervisor. Now the choice of a guide is critical there is no question about it because the guide is not somebody who is going to be with you for three years and somebody who suggests the problem that you are going to work on and sort of you discuss the problem with him from time to time. The guide is your mentor also the guide eventually we hope to be your friend also and that is the way the relationship has to go as you go along. So, the choice of a guide is critical for doing a PHD thesis there is no question about it. The guide can influence the selection of your PHD topic quite significantly. Now just to give an example and I am going to take my own example just to give you an idea of what happened 50 years ago when I did a PHD. So that you get an idea of how things when I say identify a general problem broadly in a general area of interest what I mean by that my area of work then was heat transfer. I was abroad and doing my you know done my master's degree I had done coursework towards the master's degree in all the subjects in mechanical engineering. I had passed the qualifying examination which was needed for doing a PHD and then I was ready to take my thesis work and at that time I was working on a research project where I was studying at MIT. So, one of the things one looks for is one is working on a research project perhaps that itself may develop into a thesis. So, the person who was the professor with whom I was working on that research project I talked to him about that project and said well could this move on to being a PHD thesis and you know we were the person who was guiding me then for that project not for my thesis said it was a it was a possibility he said, but he told me straight away he said I am not going to be here for more than another year he told me my plans are I am going to be leaving. So, you need to look for somebody else who will guide you because you need somebody who will be here at least you know stay here with you. So, he suggested that I go to a senior professor in the department and the senior most that time was professor now in heat transfer and. So, he said go to him you know talk to him say you have you know he you want to do a PHD I am sure he will have something good for you to do. Professor Rosenau is already a fairly big name in the United States and I was working there you know the advisor to the US atomic energy commission ran his own company a professor at MIT in and out every day that kind of thing you know. So, I had an appointment with him through secretary and I met him he knew me a little because I was already been a graduate student there doing my master's and he was the graduate student advisor. So, he knew me in that sense, but not closely not from the point of view of guiding. So, I went in and I said you know this is the position this is I know you have passed the qualifying and you are looking for this thing let us think it over he said. So, what I am going to do he said is I am going to suggest two broad topics in heat transfer and they are going to be in condensation. So, are you interested in this general area or not you have to decide, but in condensation he identified two broad areas saying one is on liquid metal condensation one is on condensation of steam on clusters of tube, but high velocity steam and he said these are two broad topics both of them are worth doing both of them will be experimental that is he made clear they will be both experimental they will be both they are worth doing if you are interested you come back to me and he gave one or two references in both of them he said these are one or two references which I have seen I think there is worth worth doing in these. Now you take your time he said take your time a week or two to decide which of these two interests you then take your time to go further into it, but he gave me some more background which I need not describe to you, but basically he identified two broad areas. So, I you know went back studied both papers he had given me went to the library spent a few days I zeroed in on one of them which was on liquid metal condensation because I thought it was more topical experimentally more difficult, but certainly something more interesting and I said well I am going to work on this he said fine go right ahead now these are the two or three most important papers you already identified read them come up with a research proposal what you think needs to be done the basic problem he identified to me he said the basic problem is the two three papers which are the only papers so far written on condensation of liquid metal vapour indicate heat transfer coefficient which are much lower than the classical theory that is available to me. So, we have a discrepancy is the experimental work at fault or does that theory not apply to liquid metal that is the issue so that is the problem you have to work on it. So, he identified very clearly and today when I look back the clarity with which he identified was I thought remarked that he could at that time say here the PhD problem was doing this is the issue which seems to be at hand go back study those papers inside out come up with a research plan how you are going to approach it he said do not worry about the funding he was already as I said a fairly influential person he said we will get the money for funding for you for the next three years once you know that you want to work on this. So, to me if I look back today fifty years down the line if I look back today that to me was critical that a person of his ability of I mean here of course guided many students by then was able to give me a problem which really was a PhD problem that is why I say the selection of a guide is critical because that is the first step if you have taken that incorrectly take on on a problem which really does not have much content in it something on which others have work and you are not really adding on much to the knowledge of that subject then you are straight away making a turning down shall I say a wrong street in the path that you want to proceed you can keep on proceeding and then at some stage you will say well I should have come back all the way I should have never gone on this path. So, that path is critical and therefore, the choice of the guide is critical in moving ahead towards doing a good PhD that selection of that broad topic is important. Now, the other which if you look at the slide that I am displaying step two is do background coursework to acquire breadth review basic concepts and theories and make a comprehensive review of the literature this is what you have to do now one by one sometimes you may have the background coursework done already as part of your master sometimes you may not, but I have always believed and most good PhD thesis are done if the person who is doing the work has a broad background of the subject that is really what I mean is again to come back to my subject like heat transfer your thesis may be in convection or your thesis may be in conduction, but you should have a broad enough background to understand heat transfer in convection conduction radiation mixed convection all these areas that means you should have done an undergraduate or a post graduate level subject. So, that you understand all these parts then you may work in a narrow area on one of that broad background is essential towards doing a successful PhD and many people do not appreciate that they think I join a place somebody gives me a problem from day one I start working on the problem it does not work that way unless you have a broad enough base you cannot hope to do narrow work in a particular area and do that work well and this is something which needs to be appreciated. So, good coursework a good background in the subjects that the subject that is broadly in which you are working is an essential part of doing a good PhD which may be in an arrow area and of course you have to the basic concepts you have to review and now comes the tricky part the comprehensive review of the literature why is one doing that because now you know the broad area which has been suggested, but now you have to zero in what specifically do I want to do and how am I going to approach the problem. So, you have to acquire all the literature that is in that field and then try to find out from that literature what is exactly that you want to do in order to narrow down to the problem that you want to take up. Now in the old days it was much harder to do literature service you know you went to a library and literally spent hours picking up heavy journals and you know sitting with them and pouring through them and at the end of it you will say all right make some notes Xerox a page or two that was the amount we of shall I say facilities we had today with internet and online journals the job of doing shall I say literature search has become a whole lot easier. In fact the difficulty is the other way there is too much information on internet and you tend to stray you see something and go in that direction see something and go in that direction you see something and go in that direction at the end of the day you say well whatever I read you say well I have read a hundred things, but nothing has really gone in you understand. So, there is a also problem with too much information in the old days it was harder to get that information you have to struggle for it and if journals were not there you had to tell the library to get that journal from another library or that paper from another library and so forth. So, to some extent it has become easier, but to some extent now there is this danger that people stray too much they do not zero in because internet is a very how shall I put it addictive type of thing you read something and you go in one direction and go on then by the time you spent an hour out say well this is not really what I came for I came with some other intention. So, one has to be careful to use once time well now a days, but as I said the availability of information is so much I mean access to information is so much easier today that doing a good literature search becomes much much easier than it was say 30 or 40 or 50 years ago having got the relevant literature see whatever topic you choose finally the number of relevant papers which directly impinge on what you plan to do are very small even today's world you will probably find seven or eight or ten papers which directly impinge on what you plan to do so and so has done this and found this so and so has done this and found this so and so has done this and found this and you say well so and so nobody has done this and found anything in this aspect that is what is worth doing that is how you proceed you look at the overall picture saying yes so and so has done this so and so has done this in between where are the gaps that need filling or so and so has done this got some data and the theory says something else well that is a problem this is how one zeroes in on a specific problem work and it requires intense concentration it is not trivial you read some papers lots of papers in a general way to acquire a feel but finally the most relevant papers and there are very few of them have to be read to the last sentence so that you can exactly say what you want to do you have to reach that state and only you can do that as a student the guide can only help you along that path you as a student have to really get to that point and if you get to that point then you are ready to take step three because then you are ready to define the problem of your thesis the research problem of your thesis precisely and that is important at some stage you have to put it precisely you remember I said this feedback so it is not that this may remain the final problem precisely but at at that point when you are moving along you need to say this is what I am going to do because it is only when you have defined what you want to do that you can start planning how you are going to go about it with feedback you may change everything and a little modifications may take place now depending on the nature of the problem of course you may have a hypothesis for it again let me take just to say what I mean by searching for a problem you know I have said you get 8 10 paper but just to give you an example again a student of mine who worked with me in the 70s did a PhD when he came to me for a PhD you know I said to him it is a I will give we will look at this following problem I said heat transfer in external flows is always of interest to engineers that is flow over tubes there is a whole lot of data I said on heat transfer in forced convection there is a whole lot of data on heat transfer in free convection in the 70s there is very little work on heat transfer in what you call as mixed convection that is where both forced and free convection are important alright so I said let us look at that and the student was working with me he said alright so we looked at literature in forced convection we said we will take only one tube your flow going past it we know very well if you write transfer engineer no such number is a function of Reynolds number and there is a whole lot of literature known on that there is a boundary layer is a boundary layer separates at the back there is a what you call a wake and so on free convection again a whole lot of data no such number depends on Grashof number alright and you have again a boundary layer and separation at the back it is a turbulent boundary but in mixed convection there is very little work and particularly very little analytical work on the boundary layer when both Reynolds number and Grashof number were important independent parameter so I said to him this is worth looking at and in fact there were other people in the world also what started to look at that problem both experimentally and theoretically so that is how we zeroed it on the problem in the 70s saying this is worth looking at let us look at the problem whether we can do some part analytically some part experimentally and that is how the PhD thesis developed so the formulation was the of the problem the formulation of hypothesis depends on defining that problem and in this case as I said we took a regime which was a combination of the two there was data on one side data on the other side when both are important that problem and not been studied and it's worth studying it occurs in practice so it's worth obtaining information on that area so this is how defy research problems get defined and as I say this is if I may say so an intensely important part getting the general problem and defining your problem precisely are important things you have to keep asking yourself the question which I said at the beginning when I said what constitutes a PhD what did I say I said does the projected work is it going to form a distinctive contribution to new knowledge on the subject or is it going to be original that's what you have to keep asking when you define that problem if you ask that question don't for or rather not forget that requirement you will always zero in on what you exactly want to do and that is how one defines the problem precisely now having done that that is having defined the problem you then move on to the next mode where you formulate if there is a hypothesis at all hypothesis and then you start planning the mode of execution of the problem I mean whether it's experimental or theoretical at this stage many universities may not require it many do one delivers a seminar talk writes a seminar report and delivers a seminar talk because you now reach the stage where you have identified a problem reasonably precisely you'd like to say this is what I want to do and when you deliver the seminar talk particularly with your supervisor present some other professors present some new ideas may come or some shall I say some errors in your thinking may come out and somebody say well you plan to do this but you know that's you have you looked at this aspect some new ideas usually come so it's useful to deliver a seminar talk in fact in most institute it's a requirement that you give some kind of seminar so that you've done the literature survey you've identified your problem and you can tell this is what I propose to now move forward with so delivering a seminar talk is a very shall I say important part and giving some indication of your plan of action is an important part of moving on now I come to the next part that is the work could be experimental the work could be theoretical or it could be both by theoretical I mean it could be analytical or numerical I mean both I mean it's theoretical work whether you're using some software or you're using you know solving some equations analytical it's theoretical work I call so I'm using that terminology what do I mean by experimental work well you've got to as an engineer or scientist you have to build some setup or some setup exists you have to modify that setup and the important thing to ask at this stage always is what are the parameters that I have are independent which I'm going to vary in my experiments and what are the parameters or the quantities that I'm going to measure and to what accuracy do I want to measure unfortunately many people don't ask these questions they think that the temperature is to be measured put a thermocouple in it will measure something or some instrument will be used a millivolt meter or some instrument will be used later on when they start making the measurements they find that the accuracy is only up to plus minus 5 degrees but they really need an accuracy of plus minus 1 or plus minus 0.1 degree centigrade then all the planning has to go all over again so you need a plan of action in which you say what are the parameters I'm varying and what are the parameters I'm going to measure to what accuracy do I want to measure these are very important questions if you want shall I say reasonably smooth sailing in the work that you plan to do and of course it helps once you have built this setup it can take easily take a few months to do then to do some preliminary testing to see that it's working well if you can test it under certain standard conditions and see that it's giving good results that help and so on but the important part is number nine step that means collect data in a systematic manner by varying the independent parameter suppose velocity of flow is an independent parameter you will vary the velocity from as low as possible to as high as possible and over each velocity in steps measure the parameters that you are interested in or some such experiments have to be done so systematic variation of the independent parameters and gathering of data is what we call designing one's experiments to get data in a comprehensive fashion if it's theoretical work or numerical work you might you need to model the situation modeling the situation means it's a three-dimensional problem you may want to model it and say look three-dimensional it's too complicated I'll treat it as a two-dimensional problem or it's even very complicated as a two-dimensional problem and you'll say well I'll simplify it and first treat it as a one-dimensional problem and so on get some idea of the results then I'll move on to a more complicated part so modeling means being able to decide what situation you want to study what are the constraints what are the boundary conditions what are the initial conditions and so on need to put this down then you need to solve your governing equations may be analytical or nowadays more often than not you'll be using some software which you may have to modify for or adapt for your particular problem and so on again number nine step is the same as in experiment you have to obtain results by systematically varying the independent parameters and this takes months and months now I'm now talking saying if steps one two three four that is identifying your research problem to can hear then this step of setting your setup for taking data taking the data systematically is another year or so because the overall plan of action per a PhD is rarely less than three years it will be about three years that you take to finish your PhD and then comes the last part tabulating analyzing interpreting results perhaps gathering some more data checking your hypothesis if you have made something drawing conclusions and of course finally writing the thesis and presenting the thesis that these are the last parts of the thesis now I'll I'll come more towards writing of the thesis as a separate topic later so I just now I don't want to talk about that but this is the broad stepwise procedure that one is going through and if you have this in front of you you will proceed systematically the chances that you will do a PhD successfully are much improved if you keep this process in front of you keeping in mind always that feedback is an important part of doing a PhD there's no such thing as saying this is it and this is the only way to proceed now let me move on having given this indication and as I said at the beginning and I repeat there will be other speakers who are going to come back and talk about these aspects so I am just giving going through in a relatively fast passion there will be other speakers who take these up one by one doing the literature search planning experiments making measurements writing of a thesis presenting a theory you know and so on all these topics are to be taken up during the next few days in more detail but it is important that the overall picture be in front of you when you get all those detailed instructions now I come to the next topic of the outline I guess some characteristics needed for doing research and I've listed three I could probably list more but I picked three which I think are particularly important you need a certain amount of intelligence I think most people in this audience whom I am talking to their engineers or the science degree holders they will have that level of intelligence that is never lacking I find in most people who come to you for a PhD the intelligence is there that is not the issue but the two next motivation and perseverance are things on which some people tend to shall I say flounder as they go along the motivation is not strong enough and if motivation is not strong enough over a long period of time like two years or three years or sometimes more if the motivation shall I say drops then things don't just move so it is important that be one be motivated because it's a long drawn out process it's important that one persevere and one on one's own one does things nobody is going to tell you from day to day what to do in a that never happens PhD is a supervisor you know if he's senior enough he'll meet you once in a month if he's not so senior he'll meet you once in a week but he's not going to meet you every hour and say what have you done or do this do this that's not PhD PhD means you have to own your own have that perseverance and individual ability to move and many people don't have that I myself experienced it with one or two PhD students who left me eventually didn't do a PhD simply because on their own they would not do anything every day they would expect that they would meet me and I would say something that you've done this you've done this not do this that's now that is not like teaching in a class that's what we do you know every day take a lecture give a problem give a quiz you do it next you know that's not a PhD PhD something in which finally you have to take over the problem yourself and if that doesn't happen then there is no progress and eventually then that if that ability is not there to persevere then things don't move and it is better probably not to move go ahead so it is important to be motivated it is important to have perseverance because the PhD is not a six month or a one year or a one and a half year project it is always a few years two is a bare minimum three is the usual quantum of time one needs sometimes even four all right so I thought I should mention this because some people as I said sometimes don't stick with it now I'm going to come to two important parts developing communication skills and many people underrate the importance of this to me these have been the two most two very important parts of doing a PhD because they're important not only for doing a PhD the ability to write and present is important not only for a PhD but it's important for your career later on you to write reports you to write notes so to be able to write well and to write effectively so that you communicate is an important skill which should be picked up again not as an obstacle for doing a PhD but as a learning process which will be useful for you in your life the same thing holds true for making a presentation how to make a presentation particularly a scientific or technical presentation is something that's important so I'll talk briefly about these things for about the writing the thesis I'll talk about the structure of the content and the style of writing and about making a presentation I'll talk about how one prepares for the presentation how one organizes the talk the use of visual aids like I'm using for this lecture slides and how to deliver the talk but more like more as I said details will come in the lectures that come later on in this week let me talk a little about the contents of the PhD thesis a typical structure of a PhD thesis doesn't I take it chapter wise would be an introductory chapter a literature review chapter at the end of which you define your problem so that's what you have done under steps 1 2 3 which I showed you earlier and then comes the chapter which is or rather the middle chapters which are concerned with describing your setup describing the experiments putting down your results that you've got I mean tabulating your results and so on okay the plan the procedures adopted or if it's theoretical modeling the situation putting down the governing equation software used or the what you call the the iterative procedures which might be used for getting results and so on that's all those are the middle chapters then come the chapters which give the results and the discussion of the results in which you present results either in graphs figures tables whatever it is and discuss those results and reach certain conclusions and then finally of course a summary of what you've done that's a broad order of a thesis as we write it generally it's you the first part that's the literature review is something you may have written also when you gave the earlier seminar so it's not something that's new but the later things have to be written that is the the design of your experiments the description of your setup the procedures experimental procedures followed the measurements made the accuracy of the measurement all the results that you have obtained and then a what you call correlation of those results or the conclusion drawn from the results or discussion of those results so that's typically a structure and of course at the end one gives references there are standard ways of giving references one should follow there may be some appendices in which some details are given that is somebody is interested in a particular detail one gives it in an appendix it does not put into the main text as far as style of writing is concerned it's important that the text that one uses simple language many people think using complicated language is good it's not so right in simple phrases it's the most effective way of communicating when you speak don't use long sentences use short sentences if you want to make an impact on somebody while speaking repeat that sentence and say it a second time that person will remember it there are certain techniques like this one has to keep in mind while writing keep it simple and keep your language simple keep the sentences short and I always remember my school teacher when we were studying English whenever we had a long sentence it's a break it into two sentences why are you writing such an involved sentence with so many commas say we call ones and full enough one full stop after three lines break it into two if you have some idea always it's more effective in putting across you want to say similarly when you write should one use an active voice or a passive voice is an issue many people use the word I I did this I did that many people use a passive voice the temperature was measured you know the passive way of usually the passive way of presenting is the preferred way not the active way but I think if the probably in the arts in the humanities perhaps even the active voice is sometimes necessary in order to convey what one wants to say but certainly in sciences and technology the passive voice that we use more predominantly now at the end you have to present and as I said learning how to make an effective presentation is a very important part of the pfd how to present your thesis because as I said presentations of scientific work or technical work you will do not only now for the thesis but you would have to do also later on in your life if you want to move up the line to be able to present effectively is important now let me make two statements at the beginning when it comes to making scientific or technical presentation and many people again don't recognize the importance of these two statements statement one which I want to make is the ability to communicate effectively to an audience is rarely inherited it is something you have to acquire through hard work it doesn't come easily to anybody so many people say you know say oh he is a natural speaker you know that's all right for politicians and they are natural speakers you can give them 5 minutes they speak for 15 on the same technical presentations are different if you want to speak effectively you have to learn that skill the hard way by doing and there are no easy solution today's lecture I am giving just now if you are listening to it I have rehearsed it at home this morning I probably didn't need to I mean after all I have written the whole what you call slides that went into it but it is an important part because I need to time myself I said well I have about an hour I need to time myself so both yesterday evening and to this morning I've done that so that I knew what I would be presenting where to emphasize what so as I said effective communication is something you have to acquire through hard work it doesn't come easily to anybody the second important thing about a technical presentation is you can speak effectively only if you know what you are talking about you can't bluff your way through if you don't know what you are talking about no amount of good speaking can save you need to know the subject so you need to know that subject effectively having read on it before you can present it to an audience there are four parts to really making a presentation first you prepare your presentation then how to organize that talk the use of visual aids that is slides or videos or whatever you use and then while delivering the talk these are four broad issues one needs to discuss while preparing the talk remember always you will be required to speak x them for you should not be reading from something you may have notes in front of you like I have some notes in front of me there is strictly for seeing that I don't miss a point I mean broadly I know but one must be willing to speak extemper to an audience then speaking in a giving a technical or a scientific presentation that's important so prepare your notes but never read from them an important prerequisite for preparing a presentation is you should know your audience you should know what that audience is composed and if it is particularly when it's homogeneous you must try to address the issues of that homogeneous or the majority of that audience like today at the beginning you will have noticed I identified the audience that is in front of the virtual audience that is in front of I'm speaking to you I know roughly what that audience is composed of the persons the men or the women who are in that audience I'm speaking keeping that in mind so it's important to know what is that audience to which one is speaking and tailor the lecture appropriate it's also important to restrict yourself because there are always limitations of time when one makes an oral presentation to see that one sticks to the time and not goes on and on and times what one is going to cover in that one hour or one hour ten minutes that's also rather important because if one doesn't time once the order in which one is going to proceed or how much time one is going to take there's a danger of taking too much time at the initial part and then hurrying along at the end and that's not desirable you need to proceed at a uniform pace so that you cover everything at the same pace and not speed up at the end and just try to you know gobble up things and move fast that will never do so these are important things when you are preparing your presentation to be able to speak extempore to know the nature of your audience and to restrict yourself to certain key points of your work so that you can time yourself and finish within that time it could be 10 minutes in a conference it could be 20 minutes and in a lecture it may be even one hour but whatever it is you must be able to adhere to that time limit which is roughly set you need to organize your talk and what do I mean by that organizing the talk means you need to have a beginning the beginning of a talk is probably the most important part of a talk you get that's when you the audience decides in their mind whether it's worth listening to this person or whether it's better to go to sleep during that next hour that's important to understand because so if you know the audience you take your time in presenting what is it that you are going to cover during that next period of 20 minutes or 40 minutes that you're going to speak so you orient the audience to the topic that you're going to cover and you show the outline of what you're going to cover through a slide like I showed that's very important in every technical presentation to give an outline because then the audience knows what's coming and sort of has a broad picture of what you're going to do then comes the main text the main part of your speech in which you say what did you do what did you find what are your results that's the main text but the important part is at the beginning to tell what's the topic why is it important is a is extremely useful to tell that well so that people develop some interest in what you're trying to say and then of course at the end there's a concluding part in which you say what are your conclusion and it helps to sum up at the end to say this is what we've done during this one hour so people get a picture at the end now another aspect which is also important is the visual aids I mean what do you use slides a PowerPoint like I'm using or you use a video etc now visual aids are useful but don't overdo the use of visual aids many people in one hour will try to put in 50 60 100 slides and then what they're really doing is all the time clicking fast and going from one to the next the audience in front or whichever is listening hardly gets time to read that power power that slide before you move on to the next slide so it's important not to have too many slides and to keep the information on each slide such that in about a minute you can read that you don't put something very complicated lots of sentences never do that for a slide always keep it simple with something effective that you want to say and it's useful to keep that in mind as I said I have seen hundreds of presentations in which people come with 50 slides and they get 20 minutes and all they are doing is going from one slide to the next and the audience cannot quickly grasp what is even in one slide before they go to the next then nothing is obtained because the audience doesn't gain from that presentation and of course delivering the talk is important how you begin is important the verbal delivery you make the use of short and simple sentences is important the place where you sit or stand is important you will be amazed how many lectures I have attended where the speaker is between you and the slides so that you can't see the slide to see the slide you have to look this way or that way and the speaker if he had stood on the side would probably not have come in anybody's way but it happens unknowingly so it's important to position yourself so that this these audience can see the slides quite easy now you will say well this is trivial everybody knows it but yet it's something that happens all the time you see people making this error so positioning yourself well is also an important part of making a good presentation and as I said these are a few points I am not trying to cover everything the last issue which I think is important which I think needs to be covered and that's the issue of plagiarism plagiarism is defined as follows and I put down a definition really I put it my own word it says using someone else's research work in the form of ideas results or words and passing it off as one's own work by not giving credit to the original work this is called plagiarism plagiarism which goes without saying is unethical it's incorrect but it is wide spread let's understand and it is not something to be entered so it's important particularly PhD work in research work to bring to the attention of every research worker that whatever you do keep in mind that if it is someone else's work give credit to that person for the work don't say it's mine don't show some result of yours as mine now many people do not understand the importance and then once in a while you will see if you look at newspaper somebody gets caught and there's a big scandal over it and things like that happens all the time in international journal of course plagiarism itself is of two types one is the type I mentioned here you know you ideas results of people are picked up but sometimes words are picked up and a sentence or two from one paper appears in another and particularly if it appears in the introduction it's not that serious but people make a big issue of that they'll if somebody writes 20 words which has been picked up from another paper even if it's in the introduction a big issue is made that you know he has copied me and so on and newspapers love that because it's news you know news has to be created nowadays so whichever it is the fact is it's not to be encouraged and there are ways on even when it comes to words that one has software we can tell whether one has copied even by chance somebody else's words so one can detect those and see that that doesn't happen even if even if when it is unintentional but I thought I should mention this because as I said there are many people who don't appreciate this fact and it needs to be reiterated that it is something we need to always see does not occur when doing research work for a thesis so now let me conclude what have I said I've given you a whole process for doing a I've said it's not the Bible it's not something one two three four and this is it this is an indicative process with feedback it gives you an idea how to proceed in scientific or technical investigations but I didn't say one thing and I said enjoy your research while doing your to be quite honest with you if somebody today were to tell me what period of your life would you like to go back to I would say the period when I was doing my research for my at that time I didn't realize how much I was enjoying it took me 10 years and 15 years later to see how much I enjoyed doing research when I did it so if you can do try to always see research is an enjoyable experience doing it for your identifying a problem planning a problem it's time consuming tries your patience if you are married it tries your wife's patience or she's a woman and tries her husband's patience true but it's still an enjoyable experience look upon it as something in which you are joining learning something treating it as a challenge and then it becomes also an enjoyable experience if you can do that the chances are you'll do a PhD even better than you would otherwise have done and let me sum up by saying it's again as I said at the beginning great pleasure to be here this morning to start this workshop by giving this general lecture on doing research for a PhD what I've done is I've identified a process a procedure for doing a PhD I've talked about the importance of communicating well both in writing and speaking I have talked briefly about the fact that since it's a long drawn-out process you need perseverance you need motivation and if possible enjoy it there's no reason why you cannot when you're young and I briefly touched on the issue of plagiarism because I think it is important in today's world that we do things ethically correctly because that also sets an example to our students with whom we are dealing from day to day so I thank you again for listening to me patiently I hope wherever you are and I think there's a little time left and I'd be glad to handle any questions if there are any as we go along me GTI Mumbai go ahead what's the backing of a benchmark journal that one can have for if I want to have my work being in benchmark by a referred journal sir so how do you identify such referred journals that association of such referred journals maybe any area let it be chemical engineering let it be radical engineering sir what you are saying is after the work is done you need to publish it now does one look ahead and say well it has to go into that journal and then only will it make an impact I think that's not the way to approach it the way to approach is you do research of a certain quality because you have done a careful literature search therefore automatically there's a certain quality built into the research that you are doing now once you've reached and got results of that quality you will automatically look for a journal which has that impact factor in which that particular topic tends to be published that's how we go so one doesn't in advance say before beginning that I'm going to publish in this what one says is I'm going to do quality work as it goes along I'll decide which journal to go to depending upon that area that which on which specifically I work that's the way to thank you very much this is from Srinagar who has a question so I am in the agriculture sciences I'm doing my doctorate program yeah in okay now my question is that whenever we have a result because we are doing the secondary research we are not in the primary research we're doing the secondary research okay so whenever we have a result we have to go to do the reference then we have to find out a reference that is in line with my result so don't we think that we are giving the scope to modify our result because if I find that my results is not in line with the other findings then that was the scope for me to modify it because no one else is saying that is that it is all yeah I've got what you are saying now what Mike way as I understand it you are saying we are working in an area in which there are already some results we've got some more results which are not quite agreeing with what has been presented so you would like to present them fine so the originality of your work lies in saying although I worked in an area in which others are working I have results which are somewhat different so by all means go ahead and present those results make sure you give reference to the other results by giving the that reference saying so and so I said this these are my results we are disagreeing with each other here we may be agreeing somewhere else whatever it is perfectly all right so the originality of your work lies in the fact that you are doing something which you say others have done yet for some part of it you are not agreeing with the results of somebody else that's quite alright nothing wrong with that actually sir I want to know that doing the is it not the high time to revise our PhD format because in our PhD format we have to give our reference in line with what others have found out we cannot have a we cannot quote our results which others have said which others have got the positive this is what our agriculture's post the doctorate program is like I don't agree with that you don't have to agree with what others have done so long as whatever you are saying is correct that means your results have been obtained correctly and you are confident about them well you represent them saying this is what I have got you can disagree with somebody certainly if your results are different but make sure you can stand up to the whoever scrutinizes your work and finds that there are no faults in it okay so I don't see anything wrong with presenting results which are in conflict with somebody else's so long as you are confident of what you are doing absolutely nothing wrong yeah NMIT Bangalore please go ahead good afternoon sir so as you mentioned as you mentioned in every thesis there is literature review as a second chapter and in literature review so most of the time when the survey is done and we have collected the material we try to repeat those things which have been done by the people and that is how it gives a new idea for us to go to the process methodology which have been left out in a particular problem which has been defined now this literature review which we are mentioning in our thesis does it come under plagiarism or how much percentage is allowable to be produced or reproduce of a virgin of work of some person which has been done literature review is not plagiarism if you give credit to all those author that means you say so and so has done this and then you reproduce even a figure from that person's thesis or paper no problem the important thing is to give credit to the person who has done the work then it's not plagiarism if however you quote something and say this has been done and you don't give a reference to the author who has done it then that's plagiarism because it appears as if you might have done it so plagiarism means using or mentioning somebody else's work but not giving credit by referring to that work of that author so there is no plagiarism involved if you give credit and refer to the particular author who has done it you can even reproduce the whole figure of somebody else's but in the title of that figure say from so and so and give that reference SVP college go ahead with your question if you haven't sir this is regarding the six point that is about the delivery delivering a seminar talk actually what I want to know is at what level like in the beginning before starting the research work of a thesis or before just submission of thesis one I said during my presentation can you hear me I said during my presentation that it is good if you can deliver one seminar roughly around step number five or six when you have defined your research problem after doing the literature review that means about an year or so after you have begun your research you are ready with what you want to do that's a good time to present a seminar so that you have defined your problem and so you tell what you want to do in front of a certain audience which includes your guide and some other professors and so on and then of course at the end it's always a requirement when the thesis reports come in that one makes a presentation so this is the bare minimum but some universities require also an annual presentation the more presentations you make the better you will be able to appreciate what you are doing but certainly one at the time that you have roughly defined your problem and one at the end are minimum that one should be doing at the minimum number that one should be doing go college good afternoon sir my question is how much weightage do we have for statistical research methodologies for phd work for statistics if I want to do any research work based on some statistics of some area how much weightage do we have and normally when we do literature survey how on an average how much time should we spend for literature survey good literature survey on an average then two separate questions you have asked one is how much time should you take over a literature survey that I mentioned during my talk if you are a full-time student for your phd your literature survey should lead to a definition of your research problem reasonably accurately and it usually takes up to one year to do that that means you collected you collected all the relevant literature done all the background reading all the general reading some coursework may be involved and at the end of it you are ready to say what you precisely want to do it can take up to one year for a full-time student that was one question the second question which you had which you asked first was what is the use of statistics for planning your research am I right no if my research is based on some statistics okay okay some statistical kind of research okay for example something data mining or information retrieval something based on strategy how much weightage do we have in for such work there is no such thing as weightage in a phd thesis you see there is no such thing as a weighting it finally it comes to this whatever you are doing with those statistics in that work that you are doing whatever you are doing interpretation of those statistics or you know in some way dealing with that statistics is that work original is that a contribution to the subject in which you are working that is the issue there is no question of saying how much weightage do I give to this it is not a test or a quiz you understand is there an originality in what you are doing is it leading to new knowledge in the subject that's the question we have to ask and I think a surat call word with your question in your like in your lecture you said the research process would vary from engineering and sciences and other disciplines to what extent it would vary suppose if one way to do research in say management do you say the research process steps which you have said would vary significantly or would be almost the same well let me take up your issue is for a management degree would the research process be different probably yes because the management process very often a degree a doctoral degree in management doesn't call for experimental work of the type we do in engineering and science it doesn't also call for the type of analytical work or numerical work that we do in engineering involving equations solving equations and so on so in that sense it is different it involves very often getting data on surveys of various kind it involves very often trying to see certain topics and case studies and trying to see results of case studies and so on so the results I mean the research process may therefore have to be adapted keeping that in mind that's what I meant because the nature of the work done is different compared to what I was describing now what it will be specifically in management again I cannot say that it would be this but it would probably be different because the nature of the work that you are presenting or dealing with in doctoral programs in management are usually different compared to what I was describing