Hints on Research ...

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing."

• Be strategic about your research. Be tactical about your funding. Not vice-versa.

• If a topic is a funding agency priority you are already too late. You need to be setting the priorities.

• Technical skill and knowledge are vastly less important than good taste in finding problems to work on.

• Nobody will steal your research ideas ... you will have to shout in order for others to even pay attention.

• If the writing is confused it is probably because you do not know what you are talking about.

• The bad reviews are your fault. You failed to get your idea across, or at best submitted to the wrong place and should have known better.

• If the methodology section of the paper exceeds 20% of the available space, your paper is probably not interesting.

• If you are not truly worried, and doubt whether your approach will survive experimental validation, you are not doing science. And, by the way, unless you have tested it, I guarantee your approach does not scale.

• The older you are the more risks you should take in selecting your research problem. You are only as good as your last paper. Your h-index means nothing to me.

• Give your research idea space, and accord others the same respect.