• Research cycle starts with basically a practical problem: one must be clear what the problem being attempted to solve is and why it is important. This problem motivates a research question without which one can tend to get lost in a giant swamp of information. The question helps one zero in onto manageable volume of information, and in turn defines a research project which is an activity or set of activities that ultimately leads to result or answer, which in turn helps to solve the practical problem.

• Good research involves systematic collection and analysis of information and is followed by an attempt to infer a little bit beyond the already known information in a way that is a significant value addition.

• A worthwhile research problem would have one or more attributes. It could be nonintuitive/counterintuitive even to someone who knows the area, something that the research community had been expecting for sometime, a major simplification of a central part of the theory, a new result which would start off a new subject or an area, provides a new method or improves upon known methods of doing something which has practical applications, or a result which stops further work in an area. The researcher has to be convinced that the problem is worthwhile before beginning to tackle it because best efforts come when the work is worth doing, and the problem and/or solution has a better chance of being accepted by the research community.

• A typical research process comprises the following stages:

1.Identify and formulate the research topic or problem Identify and formulate the research topic or problem

2.Literature search and review

3.Research objectives, questions, and hypotheses

4.Research approach, design, and strategy

5.Data collection

6.Data analysis

7.Generalisation and write-up