10 Tips for Making Your Research Relevant
Scientific researches and Academic works take a huge toll on researchers and academic authors who sacrifice their life and personal time behind investigating something which is meaningful and unknown to the world. Once they have finished, they feel a sense of achievement for having accomplished a monumental task like completing a significant research, such that they want to go ahead and work on its thesis publication with different prominent journals. However, what happens if the world doesn’t find the work relevant enough? The matter of irrelevance of scientific works in real world, has always been an issue with researchers who believe so strongly in their work, but non-scientists feel the discoveries or inventions are doing nothing to change the society. Even Nobel Prize is conferred to those researchers, whose work has practical applications in solving real-life problems, not to the researcher with exceptional finding. So these days, academicians and scientists are burdened with the load of being relevant or significant to society while pursuing their passion.
Here are 10 ways in which you can make your work more relevant:-
- Do Research on a Socially Relevant Subject– You may have passion for the unknown, the undiscovered, but you have to face it; when your research cannot change something in society, it won’t be meaningful to real people. When you pick a real problem, existent in society as your topic of research, you can make a direct impact on the society by solving the problem meaningfully.
- Do Your Literature Review Beforehand– You have to study related researches in your field very wisely. Unless you do that, you cannot define your research question; neither will you be able to identify if your work is important at all. Do not neglect your review of literature; do it much before you start off with anything else. Related works in the field will give you a clear idea about the relevance of your topic. That will save you time when you start the research, survey, techniques and analyses.
- Make Your Pitch Socially Meaningful– When you have taken a step forward on the initial steps, you have done your research well and you are ready for your thesis publication, you have to think on how you will pitch your work. You need to pitch even before research, when you need funding for your work. Whatever, your research topic is, make sure you defend it properly in your pitch, such that it makes sense to the society. You have to convince the listeners, that if your research isn’t there, developments in the field of technological innovations and other discoveries that directly solve a societal problem, won’t be possible. Say, your research is on a hydration machine; if you can pitch your story such that it will convince your audience that it can solve water-scarcity across the world, your research will be directly impactful upon society.
- Start Looking for Organizations to Approach– If your research needs funding, you have to look out for the organizations parallelly because, every organization will have their own niche which can affect your original project plan. Working with an online journal for thesis publication may ease your work of looking for publishers, but getting a sponsorship can still be tough. So, when you choose your subject or topic, start choosing the places whom you will approach, so that you can prepare your research proposal side by side. Remember, your research topic needs to be relevant to your sponsors also.
- Select Sample from Real Crowd– Eventually your research is going to go out to the world, which comprises of scientific and non-scientific people, rich and poor, old and young. Select sample for your research from the real world. Survey works conducted in the natural environment will have more real and relevant data than that conducted in a closed room under structured conditions. In fact, this process will help you cater your work to your audience better.
- Take Care and Precision on Research Statement– use the same method and precision to develop a problem statement in your research abstract. If there is none, you have to formulate a problem, (which is existent in society, but perhaps unidentified) and then state how your research attempts to solve the problem. Writing a meaningful abstract or problem statement in your research paper is very important for making it impactful or relevant to the society.
- Use the Right Keywords– These days, findings something is not difficult because everything is on the web. But that finding can become too rigorous for readers, if your study doesn’t have the right keywords in the title, because this is the age of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Do a basic research of what are trending on the popular search engines before you decide a title for your research or when you publish your thesis as a book. Right keywords facilitate finding your research easily. When your research is found easily, it gets better visibility and citation. The more visible your research is, the more relevant and effective it will be.
- Make Your Research Interdisciplinary or Transdisciplinary– It has been found that interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary journals cater widely to the society. That is such journals attract more audience from different inter-related fields. Approach such journals to get more audience for your research. Thesis publication without mass appreciation is of no use. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary journals will bring audience from more than one field of interest, to your work.
- Conduct Virtual and In-person Seminars or Discussions– This can be great way to promote your idea to the academic group in your locality or worldwide. Seminars, conferences or just simple group discussion gatherings can be fun way to make your research subject more relevant to the academicians and researchers in the field and beyond, before thesis publication. Libraries are great to collaborate these local events. However, you can visit already happening seminars to speak about your work, or just organize a virtual event.
- Take Forward Your Work to the Actual Audience– Promotion and marketing in every field hold immense importance. After your research is ready, you have to go out into the society and work with real people to make your thesis prominent, just the way you did for survey. You may have to preach and explain the main victims of the problem, how your research is going to help them evolve from situation; how you have worked hard to make a change in the society. That is how, your research will find a place among non-scientists; when they will identify with your work, they will be willing to read it.
