Social science research covers a wide range. Except for literature, history and philosophy, all large liberal arts can be regarded as social sciences, and even some aspects of natural sciences focusing on economic and social applications can be regarded as social sciences. For young people, if they are interested in social science research, or even if they are not interested, they can't help entering this field. It is very important to choose an appropriate research direction. The research direction is equivalent to the medium-term strategy of research, almost 5-15 years. Of course, there is no need to tangle with the concept. Or in other words, for many young people, if the research direction is correct, a research direction can almost be rated as positive.

First, the essential things can be used as the research object and can not rub the hot spots. Many tall things do not necessarily have deep academic theories, and some even have no academic theories. The research direction is not to collect one or two papers in a short time. There is no shortcut, so you must calm down. If you think about one or two things all day and keep looking at materials, literature and data, you will naturally have feelings over a long period of time.

For example, many people know the multi-attribute evaluation I do. The index system is too simple. High school mathematics can be applied freely. Predecessors in this field have also done a lot, including several scholars I respect. But after more than 10 years, I suddenly found that I could do it. I was full of dry goods and could be used as one of my lifelong achievements.

Second, a lot of fast reading literature. With a certain theoretical basis, it is inevitable to read the literature. When looking for the research direction, there is a basic principle that we must remember to read 200 documents in 3 hours. You must say that if you can't remember and understand, that's right. Ghosts can't remember, let alone people. But when you are dizzy, a few words suddenly enter your brain, indicating that there is an invisible hand that will take you in this direction and write it down at any time. Remember, do this once a month and read 200 articles quickly when your brain is most awake.

For example, the research on resilience was found in fast reading. At that time, I immediately wrote it down. Later, I asked one of my students to do resilience in a certain field. I checked the literature and found that there was no paper. That's great. I worked for one year, and one C journal was hired. In addition, there was one authority and one C journal in the final review.

There is no contradiction between fast reading and intensive reading. The former is used to choose the direction and the latter is used to do a good job in the paper.

Third, pay attention to interdisciplinary. There is a problem with the division of social science disciplines too carefully. Take the first-class disciplines as an example, such as applied economy, theoretical economy, business administration, public management, statistics, management science and engineering, agricultural and forestry economic management, library and information philology, Pedagogy. Let's go to hell with disciplines. Go into more fields and have a look. If you are not necessarily interested in some, force yourself to read more. If you can't, read quickly. During my college years, I was about three or four years old. I read five books a week. Most of them read fast and a few are slow. At that time, they were only to supplement knowledge and had nothing to do with learning.

For example, in terms of disciplines, I am engaged in science and technology evaluation, which can be economics, statistics and information science. In terms of fields, it is mainly in Information Science and a few in management. In addition, it is also related to public management and pedagogy. What discipline do you say? And now, I find that some of my papers really don't know what subjects to contribute to. Regardless of it, you can have dry goods. The world is very big, and you have a foothold is enough.

Fourth, participate in more exchanges. The truth is the same. You can't be a house man or a house woman by learning. You should have more meetings, communicate more, and chat more with peers or non peers. There may be unexpected receipt of goods. In this process, don't expect to gain much. Sometimes a sentence, half a sentence, and sometimes a word is enough.

At the end of 2012, I met my colleague in the college corridor. I asked casually, what are you doing? What's hot recently? He said big data. I said what is big data. He said you should buy someone's book and have a look. So I bought two books, one of which was finished in two days, and then spent three days writing a paper - "big data and big data economics". I first put forward the concepts of big data economics and big data statistics, which was later published in China soft science and reprinted in full by the National People's Congress. Now it is the third paper downloaded by China soft science.

Fifth, master measurement methods. About this part, I'm going to write a separate blog post. I pay more attention to dabbling in different quantitative research methods. I have formed a habit for a long time, so I have a lot of wonderful ideas. For example, the measurement of innovation policies, such as the failure of evaluation methods, such as the failure of weights, and so on, each point has a number of achievements, which has promoted the progress of research methodology.

Sixth, keep a good relationship with your mentor. I didn't want to write this. Sometimes the research direction of the tutor may not develop very well. If you continue to do it, what will you do in the future? Therefore, to maintain a good relationship, you can have a certain degree of freedom to research topics, or your big paper is in the direction of a mentor, but you are interested in another direction. No tutor is dissatisfied with his disciples' more good papers, even if the direction is different from him.

To sum up, there is no secret to finding a research direction. It's hard. After all, there are few geniuses. It is suggested that young people can stick to it in the academic circle before there is no better way to go. Don't give up easily. Moreover, any profession and any industry have their own difficulties. The academic circle can improve a lot by relying on its own efforts. What can you change in many other fields?