Swimming at sea

Now I know what a student feels like. My lector asked me "to do some research next semester". I'm free to choose a topic as long as it is within one of the topics of the research group (eHealth, ICT & Energy, offshoring, ...). At this point I'm still wrestling with my topic of choice. What will I do? What will I do about it? Is this feasible? Is it too big a topic? I'm not coming to a conclusion just yet.

What I *am* doing is training myself in the necessary skills. So if you're in the same position, here's what I did:

- I searched enough literature to find out that I wasn't skilled in searching it

- So I went to the library to get some instruction. In 2 hours I was up and running. Part of the efficiency came from my direct questions based on my unsuccesful searches.

- I looked at reference managers. IF I had a Mac I'd go with Papers, but for now I'm sticking with RefWorks. It's not as nice as Papers but it's the standard at the RuG with which we have some agreements.

- I'm getting myself organised with Microsoft OneNote which is part of Office. That's a brilliant product for a filer like me. I can organise my notes, logs and all my other workrelated stuff.

- I went to the library to skim some books about research. There are too many titles to mention. How to Research by Blaxter was a nice one with a lot of practical checklists. But research can only be learned by doing...