Researching term paper!

For one of my classes we have to write two review papers. I am not good at writing technical papers so I decided to jump on this quickly since it is going to be 50% of my grade.

I knew more or less the area I wanted to concentrate on, but because we had to select a paper and explain in details the methods used, the results and conclusions, and basically our understanding of the whole research, I decided to find the paper before telling the professor what area I shall be concentrating on.

I looked at my text to see if I can find any references but no luck! So I went to the library to search the databases of articles. I put in my search terms and there popped out 1000s references. I ordered them by the date and started reading the titles from the most recent ones. If I liked a title, then I read an abstract. And if the abstract sounded what I wanted to study I proceeded to download the article to read.

Unfortunately, I was never able to go pass the introduction. I could not follow the articles once it got technical! I could not understand, for example, where they got certain formula and how they manipulate it to get to the next one. Basically I could not understand a thing!

Discouraged, after wasting almost two full days, I proceeded to search the web, hoping to find some else's work, in a similar class, in the area that I like to study. After couple of hours of not getting anywhere I saw a reference to a book chapter and went to Google books preview and started reading. Before I knew it, I had read about 15 pages and Google told me that I had reached my preview quota! Panicked I check the sidebar, find in a library, to see if the book was available in any of the local libraries, and to my delight I found that my library, the one that I was currently in, had it, and even more delightful, it was available! So I run upstairs, quickly located the book, and started reading. Read a few chapters and I knew I was on the right track.

This past weekend, I mostly studied the three chapters that are related to what I want to do, from this precious book that I luckily located!

I am amazed why I was stupid enough to think that I could understand the articles that have been written by and for the people who have been studying the field for a while. I should have searched other similar textbooks of the class and try to find something written for novices to the field. Anyhow, I am grateful that I found my reference after two days of searching!

So since the weekend I have located a handful of articles that I might be able to understand and write about. Yesterday I sent an email to my professor to tell him of my area of interest and I also send him the list of my references. He wrote back today and told me that if I had given him just the area of my interest he would have discouraged me of pursuing it, reasoning that it might be advanced for me! But since I had spent time locating some good references he is looking forward to seeing my progress.

I feel good!