As the readers may have guessed I have initiated the process of 'writing a paper' - my first one. If you are curious to know, I am currently into 5th year of my doctoral program. I am mentioning this because I think it will be of consolation to many readers who happen to find themselves in a situation where they haven't been able to come up with a paper after 2 years into their PhD program. And I will let you know once (IF at all) it gets accepted by some (hopefully decent) journal, which will probably give even more relief.
Anyway, I will cut to the chase as I am really not in an enthusiastic mood to write an entry. But like before I suffer from a suspicion that this particular post may never materialize if I don't write it now.
The paper that I am thinking of writing is based on the work mentioned in my first three PhD Memoirs (don't worry if you haven't read them, you can still follow this). For it to be publishable, naturally it must satisfy one key requirement (among others) - it should be original work. So, it makes sense to first investigate whether the work being undertaken with the objective of publishing in future has been done before or not, right? Of course, this investigation can consume quite some time and effort, nevertheless it is necessary. Moreover, this is important as the results of this investigation appear in the 'Introduction' section of the paper. It can even be argued that this is a fundamental and logical step which dictates how to proceed with research, which topic to research on, etc.
As irrational as it may seem I didn't complete this step thoroughly then before embarking on the work that I now wish to get published. And so, with my fingers crossed, I have lately been searching online academic repositories for articles dealing with my (hopefully not!!) or similar work.
I have used the word 'thoroughly' above since I am now indeed doing it thoroughly and realize that previously I didn't.
Perhaps I shouldn't but I find it funny. You see, several months ago I was quite desperate and anxious to get a breakthrough in being able to find a mathematical technique to solve one aspect of my particular research problem. I eventually succeeded in discovering one. For the sake of verifying my understanding of it, I then applied it to solve an already solved problem- similar to but not exactly mine - that had been been done using another (non-comprehensible to me) technique. But after many attempts, to my immense disappointment, I failed to replicate those results. Later on I discovered that the results of that work are actually incorrect and that my understanding of the technique is flawless. And I committed my first fatal mistake at this point.
I was so overcome by excitement upon the discovery of finding the correct analytical solution to that problem that I didn't bother to investigate thoroughly whether others had also succeeded in doing that. After doing a small survey I falsely believed and fantasized that the correctly obtained solution to that problem would also be publishable, in addition to the solution to my particular research problem. Had I investigated thoroughly, like I am doing now, it might have put the achievement in proper context. And perhaps I might have discovered some more (possibly simpler or more interesting) techniques of solving the class of problems to which my particular research problem belongs - all of which I am discovering now..
I think I knew then that I was proceeding in a non-systematic manner but the phases of mental exhaustion prevented me from facing its consequences. And I find it funny to see how, finally, the task of writing a paper is making it possible for me to engage in a thorough, objective and dispassionate search for similar and already-published work in a more or less effortless manner.
Fortunately it seems things will still probably work out for me. But I have learned a vital lesson and hope so did the prospective graduate student readers.
Additionally, I think my experience is probably generalizable to our species - we hesitate to look for evidence which may falsify our beliefs and or weaken our hopes.
