Principles of Effective Research
This essay is intended as a letter to both myself and others, to hold up in the sharpest possible terms an ideal of research I believe is worth working toward. ... The philosophy underlying the essay is based on a famous quote attributed to Aristotle: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.'' Underlying all our habits are models (often unconscious) of how the world works. I'm writing this essay to develop an improved personal model of how to be an effective researcher, a model that can be used as the basis for concrete actions leading to the development of new habits.