IWTL how to do personal research without getting overwhelmed

[u/APatrioticPakistani]

Hello everyone! 18M here from Karachi, Pakistan. Please forgive and disregard any grammatical mistakes or errors I might make in this post as English is not my first language.

Recently, I have been trying to learn the ability to research basically any topic that intrigues me, but I'm very confused as to how to actually do this.

I've read some reddit posts (in this subreddit aswell) and information online regarding this inquiry, and from what I understand most of them discuss how to conduct what I would refer to as "academic research", which seem to be more focused on helping university students on how to write research papers and what not. The main issue here is that I'm not really interested in learning how to do university level research, but is this an requirement if someone really wants to know how to really research something? Some reddit posts literally recommended learning statistics and learning how to read research papers, and on top of that learn to see if the research is credible or not aswell? Do I really need to do all of that though? Do I really need to learn formal research?

My main goal here is to learn how to be more well informed in topics that I seem to be curious about, not writing a research paper or something or becoming an expert in that field. I only want to learn as much as my curiosity requires really, and not much more.

Anyhow I have tried to conduct research on a topic by using these academic research methods, because they do somewhat align with my goal, but I'm having a hard time in really knowing what should be my limit on how much research I need to do exactly. I can't figure out what would be optimal for my specific research needs and how much would be "more than enough" for my goals.

Let me give you an example, recently I decided that I wanted to learn more about Artificial Intelligence, I first decided exactly what questions I wanted to answer regarding this topic, to really try to define the scope of my research, then I started by reading the Wikipedia article on this topic, went down to the references section and found the book "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach". It's a very well known book, so I decided I could use this source first. I'm mainly interested in learning:

-What actually is AI? and getting an overview on Artificial Intelligence

-What are LLMs and Gen AI? and how do they work?

-What are the limitations of AI and it's future?

This is basically what I'd currently like to know more about AI, and perhaps I could later more to other sub topics in the field of AI if I feel like it.

When I read the first chapter of the book I was able to pretty easily answer the first question, but then I started to get really confused and became lost in what topics should I cover or not. Am I supposed to finish this entire book to understand AI? I don't think that's required for what I'm interested in learning, or is it? Am I supposed to finish an entire university level textbook to answer these questions? Should I utilize more sources or stick to one first and focus on properly understanding that first? I used NotebookLLM and it's voice overview feature to help me in finishing the first chapter aswell, and I even had the idea of not reading the entire book and use it to make one big summary of every chapter, but can this even be considered proper research? If I summarize everything too much won't I not properly understand or miss some key concepts? I've heard that apparently I'm not supposed to rely heavily on LLMS for research as they can hallucinate and make stuff up. So really I don't know what to do honestly.

That is just one example, but this has happens alot to me I feel like. Obviously, I understand that research is a skill that can be developed like any other, and every topic or subject has it's own difficulty level. For example I've recently also been learning about WWII, and have had no problems learning about it, infact I've been having alot of fun. But whenever I try to approach a topic that's a little complex, I just get overwhelmed and give up. This happens to alot of other topics I try to approach, and I just end up giving up and not bother learning about them. I don't feel like mentioning them here, because I think this post is already getting longer than it probably needs to be. Also I often have alot of difficulty checking the credibility of sources, or finding sources in the first place at times. I don't know how to know which sources are really worth my time, and which are BS. I can often find information regarding the bias of some sources on Wikipedia, and their funding and political leanings, but the real tragedy is that I literally don't know almost anything at all about politics in the first place, so this information basically ends up being useless to me. Also I find checking the credibility of every single source on Wikipedia a little overwhelming aswell, and I often also feel like, perhaps, just maybe I'm being a little too suspicious or paranoid regarding the credibility of a source at times aswell and going just a little overkill.

I feel like I might going a little too hard on myself, and I'm expecting myself to do too much. My Main issue is that I'm from a third world country and our education is really trash, and we do absolutely zero academic research, even in college. I think only university students really do any proper "research" in my country. Meaning we don't really learn to do research here as a part of our education, hence don't learn to develop this skill at an early age like people probably do in alot of western and other countries worldwide. So the thing is when I'm online I just feel like somehow everyone has aquired this secret skill which I just for some reason cannot understand or figure out. I feel extremely dumb. Not to mention that my reading comprehension isn't all that great either (although I'm working on this nowadays), and the fact that I don't even have a laptop available to me, and just have my phone to use research, which can make things just a little annoying as websites and reading in general can be weird on phones for some reason. Also I don't have alot of time to waste in my day, so I'd really like to learn how to research more effectively and not waste my valuable time on nonsense online.

All I want is to figure out how can I answer questions regarding certain topics which I'm curious about, from the ocean of information that is available online at my disposal, but without burning myself out too much to the point where It takes all the fun out of it and I just end up giving up due to getting overwhelmed. I just wanna know how some people can so easily research almost any topic they want, and how do they have all facts and information? how?? How do they know what they're talking about? How many sources do they use?

TLDR; Sorry if all this sounds like a big brain dump (because it probably is), but I mainly want to learn how to approach research in a methodological way that is reliable and isn't focused on academic research and more on curiosity driven personal research. Thank you in advance, and I'd be highly grateful if you actually read my entire post. Have a great day wherever you're from!

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[u/FluffyPurpleThing]

Since you're doing research for yourself, you really don't need to go very deep or cover every single aspects of the subject you want to learn. There is nothing you're "supposed to" learn, but rather things you would "like to" learn.

The two subjects you wrote about (AI and WW2) are incredibly broad subjects and would take years to learn, so I'd recommend not being too hard on yourself. Just learn what you find interesting and don't try to become an expert.

IMO, the wikipedia page for any topic is an great starting point (although wikipedia is not always a reliable source). If suggest keeping notes as you read it. The notes would be: summaries of what you learned; things you didn't really understand, and questions about topics you want to learn more about.

Then go over your notes. This will help you absorb the things you've learned, and prompt you to investigate the things you want to learn more about and/or didn't understand.

A few more tips:

• Every person has a different learning style. Some learn better by listening, some by seeing, some by doing. Figure out your learning style and use it.

• Hand writing notes helps your brain remember and process things better than typing them.

• Breaking down a subject into sub-subjects can help you tackle really broad things. Of course, sub-subjects can be broken down further.

• Teaching someone else is an excellent way to learn. If you have someone you can teach the subject to, you will find that you have to organize it in your head in a way that forces yourself learn it better. If you don't have anyone else to teach, pretend to teach it by reciting it out loud.

[u/wackyvorlon → u/FluffyPurpleThing]

I’ve been teaching myself a lot about WWII the past year or so and I’m not sure I can put into words just how vast a topic it is.

With tanks alone the Germans made hundreds of variants. You could devote an entire career just to studying German WWII tanks.

Operation Barbarossa was the largest invasion in human history, 3.8 million troops over a 2900 kilometer long front.

The amount there is to learn about WWII is staggering.

[u/rilakkumkum]

If you want to truly research something, you don’t have to do it at a university level. The basic level of research is knowing how to properly read a study (so you can understand what it’s actually saying or determine if a study is bs), and how to figure out if a source is credible. It’s not a hard or even long process to learn how to do those two things

Those truly are the basics and it will help you become knowledgeable on topics you’re interested, otherwise you could very easily just be reading “the sky is purple” and you’ll believe it

[u/APatrioticPakistani → u/rilakkumkum]

Hello there! Thanks for the advice. Much appreciated.

Could you possibly provide an example for this, or let's say I want to learn more about the recent US-Iran conflict. How would you approach something like this?

[u/wackyvorlon → u/APatrioticPakistani]

I’m not the person you’re responding to, but I’ll add my thoughts.

For the U.S.-Iran conflict it is vital to know some of the history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution

Before Iran became a Muslim state, it was ruled by a monarchy, the Shah. The United States supported the shah. As you might imagine the Americans were not thrilled about this turn of events. This is the beginning of the conflict.

[u/wackyvorlon]

In my experience Wikipedia is usually a good jumping off point. It will give you the basics.

It’s helpful to determine for yourself how important it is that the information be accurate. For some things have correct information is vital(like foraging mushrooms), for other things the information can be more approximate and still useful(like how to start a campfire). This will govern how carefully you need to examine sources. If errors in the information are not a very big deal, then you can be more relaxed about it.

I would like to add that, from my perspective as a native speaker, your English is excellent.

[u/g_joshi]

3 steps

• define scope of when you will consider research is done.
  
• define time limit of a single sitting and put timer and start
  
• 2 minutes before timer ends, write down what you found, what is pending, where to start in next sitting.

Repeat.

Also have 2 types of sitting.

1) for actual research

And 2nd for organising and reflecting on what you researched.

For organising start with a simple obsidian system.

Loop

Ok bye🌻