3: How to Begin a New Research Project

Whether you are starting out on researching for a new PhD project, someone who has finished thier PhD and who might be starting a new researh job, or even if you are an experienced researcher trying to begin work on your fifth book (yikes!) beginning the first phases of a project can be a daunting, and at times stressful, experience.

In our third podcast (which you can listen to here) we reflected on our experiences of 'starting new things'. This blog summarises our discussion, and includes our top tips for the following topics:

• How to identify your training needs for this new work, and how to find that specific training.

• How to plan your project and its various stages.

• How to manage your dynamics with your supervisors, and mentors.

• Lastly, perhaps most difficult: how to actually START and get stuck into it.

We hope that you find this short guide useful! IF you did, let us know by contacting us (details below) or if you liked it and want to know more about cetain topics, then please do get in touch to let us know how we can help you more as ECRs in the Humanities.

1: How to identify your training needs and find help to address them:

Whatever your career stage, you will probably need to gain some new skills if you are starting a new areas of research. But not everybody is aware of what you'll need. You will probably find it helpful to work backwards from your proejcted research outcomes. So spend some time thinking about what you hope to achieve, and then think about what you might need to learn/known in order to meet these ambitions.

For example, if you want to create any digital aspect of a project, you may need to learn new skills. Are you creating an app to engage people in your research project? If so, do you need to learn how to code?

You might also try the following ways to gain advice on your training needs:

• Work backwards from your projected project outcomes. Think about

• Talk to your mentors (this could be a PhD stupervisor, or a project leader, or jsut a more senior staff member) to ask thier opinions on what you might need to complete the work.

• If you are employed by a university, your institution might have a catalogue of courses in research skills (such as languzges, research methods, etc).

• Other institutions may also run courses that you can sign up to. For example,if you want to learn how to do GIS mapping, you can attend a free online course run by the university of Saskatchewan, here: https://hgis.usask.ca/gis-training/gis-training.php

• To find other simialr courses, try online searches: you'll be surprised what you can find!

Section 2: How to plan your project and its stages:

In our podcast, we didsucced typically, how long it can take to complete a project. For example:

• PhD can take several years (in the UK, it is ecpected to be 3-4 years full-time, but in the US and Europe, this can take up to 6-7 years or longer).

• Charlie said that his monograph (85,000 words) took about five years to finish from start to finish.

• Article/Book-chapter, can take less than 1 year.

• Researching and writing a 20-minute conference paper can depends on how much you know about the topic, but usually it takes around one week, if this is the only thing you are writing in that week.

However, it is very important to note that plans change! Your original plan for research is nearly always different to what eventually happens: but it helps to have an idea of where you think you want to go with it.

Charlie gave us a summary of how he might write a journal article of around 8,000 words (in the disciline of History). The plan is usually something like this:

• Read existing scholarship on the topic (at this stage I can then begin to identify what materials I need, and how much time the project is going to take).

• (Depending on the nature of my actual topic: at this stage, I may need to apply for research funding in order to travel to study my sources).

• (I am an historian): read my primary source texts (this can involve actually traveling to read original documents and sources in various fun locations).

• Decide my key research questions.

• Re-read my primary source texts to clarify what I think some of the answers are.

• Start writing (but this also includes re-reading the scholarship on particular areas of research).

• Somewhere here, also present initial findings at conferences, or via informal chats with colleagues (via Zoom, etc.)

• When writing is finished: send to trustworthy colleagues for feedback.

• The whole thing??

• Finish!  = usually for me, this means ‘send to publisher’.

Section 3: How To Get Stuck In, and actually begin your work on this amazing new project

Follow your interests from the outset: start with the parts that most interest you, and you should find that you make the most progress.

Charlie noted that he keeps a regular 'to-do' list, with short, medium and long-term jobs on it. He also talked about how important it is to keep regular rythms of work (whatever these are!)

While Charlie suggested that he works best if doing 2-3 hours per day, every working day, Rachael suggested that she prefers whole days to work on a project, rather than a few hours each day, so it is entirely dependent on what works for you! It is important to remember not to compare your own research habits to other people’s. 

Olivia keeps regular 'ta-da' lists: reflecting on your achivments at the end of each day, no matter how small they may be. This helps to turn any work day into a prositve day.

Another strategy is to talk to others who are working on similar projects: peer support can be a really useful way to help maintain your progress, and gain supportive comments from those around you.

Finally, good luck with your project! You can find more insight in our podcast about this topic, but if you woul;d like to ask more questions or get in touch to request other discusison topics, then please reach out!

email: ecrpodcasters@gmail.com

Twitter/X: @ecrpodcasters