Monday, May 9, 2016

Fake Research

Many streams of education use the empowering tool of research projects, based on internship during vacations. However, during the presentation, we find that some students have no real experience and they have relied on the internet to compile their projects. The modus operandi is identified through irrelevant and erroneous information. Obviously, they have lost out on real learning.

Such students focus on the end assignment rather than on the learning experience. They deny themselves the joy of true research where one embarks on a journey to explore and discover newer facts and realities. Research based on direct experience yields the fruit of fresh knowledge and competency. And fake research leads to a fake image which can be stripped bare anytime.

So often, so many of us make presentations on social media as if we are experts on the topic. We pretend to have involved in deep research, when we are just ‘copy-paste’ artists. We propound and assert our fake research, which is obviously not based on any real understanding. We take the first set of information as the truth and flaunt it as our knowledge based on considerable study.

Albert Einstein said, ‘Information is not knowledge’. We must learn to sift facts from non-facts in the information we receive. We must choose and develop the true spirit of inquiry and investigation. Most importantly, we must not be lured by the approval of our claims by those may blindly believe that we are sincere. Sooner or later, we will stand exposed. And we will have denied the joys of true research.

It is good to involve in research of things that interest us… health, history, cuisine, etc. The internet and books provide for referencing but not in a fleeting form. We have to read wide and deep to escape the falsehoods and discover the truth. And real experience must be the base of such research. Otherwise we will be silly pretenders posing as expert researchers!

If interested in learning, get off the comfort perch…
Explore the information and escape fake research!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

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