Advice for Research

ABCDE Principles

This is the most important lesson I learned from Prof. Yuan Xie. The ABCDE provides guidelines for how to become an excellent researcher. Always remember to take a look back at these principles, after you run for a long research journey.

• A: Assessment (Critical Thinking). For mature faculty, we have obtained much experience and resource. We should be able to judge the current research in our field, know the future direction, and invest our resource to the future. Let’s make more milestones.
• B: Big Vision (Visionary Thinking). For postdoc or young faculty, we should be able to make plans for a series of research works to build up our own name card. We are beginning to run small research groups. Teach students the CDE principles.
• C: Communication (Logical Thinking). For senior Ph.D. students, we should learn to logically organize our paper and presentation for the best understanding from readers and audiences. This is one of the most important abilities of Ph.D. students. Learn the Pyramid Principle. Once we obtain all the CDE abilities, congratulations, the Ph.D. degree is coming.
• D: Design (Creative Thinking). For third-year Ph.D. students, we should understand how to extract scientific problems from a given topic, propose techniques targeting the problems, and design experiments to effectively evaluate the techniques.
• E: Execution (Engineering Thinking). For first-second-year Ph.D. students, we may be entering a new research field or working with senior students. Quickly learn all the basic techniques for simulation and design.

Pyramid Principle

Write for Readers (By Prof. Yang Liu, THU, in Chinese)

Having Effective Meetings Between Advisors and Students (By Prof. Mingyu Gao, THU)

My friend Prof. Gao wrote the tips several years before I started my faculty career, but they are still helpful when I meet my students:

“1) Review the current progress quickly. 2) Spend time mostly on advice for improvements and plans for the next steps. 3) End the meeting with a summary of to-do tasks. 4) Save easy and minor issues as well as detail checks to offline. 5) Learn how to analyze problems independently and comprehensively. 6) And also actively reach out for help when needed.”

Beautiful Science

I believe the highest-level research is a beautiful art: Great insight matches smoothly with the target scientific problem. Readers would enjoy reading such beauty of science and get inspired to create their own arts.

Deep Work

Deep Work Mode: Use large time blocks for thinking-intensive works like formulating ideas and creating presentations. The tasks are usually on the critical path of your project, so they deserve your most active energy of a day.

Shallow Work Mode: Use small time pieces for non-thinking-intensive works. Sometimes even forgetting these tasks won’t change the results.

Lifelong Learning

Passion-Driven Research

Reading List

• Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach
• Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface
• Readings in Computer Architecture
• The Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing and Thinking
• Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Others

Refer to Prof. Xie’s Advice Collection for more tips (Not available any more, unfortunately).