Collins Gyau

Please tell me more about the context of your work. Are you doing your research in your role as student? A government researcher? Independent/self-employed? What is your target research result? A student essay? An MA thesis? A PhD thesis? A published paper? A book? Is anyone in Ghana giving you advice? An employer? A teacher? A thesis supervisor?

What advice have your already been given?

A first point about doing research is that you need to explain the context of a question when approaching people who know nothing about you. You need to have good communication skills. Imagine your own response if someone asked a very general question without introducing themselves and explaining the context.

When I first started doing research (for an undergraduate essay and then an MSc thesis), I asked many different kinds of people questions related to my research project, to get information and advice. In each case, I thought carefully about how to make my questions understandable and interesting for the other person.

One of my undergraduate essays involved quite a lot of research - not just reading but also contacting various researchers and organisations to get information and advice. When I finished, I was told that the essay could make a good research proposal for an MSc project, so that is what I did, and I am still on the trail of the research that began in that undergraduate essay, 25 years later.

You can contact me further about your project, privately, but I am making this a public comment because it is something that many people should think about when communciating with others.