UNS — The alumnus of Sociology Program Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta 2003 and a researcher in the Center for Population National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Yanu Endar Prasetyo, Ph.D, delivered material on Creative Process in Research: From Beginning to End in an online general lecture held by the Sociology Program Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIP) UNS through the Zoom Cloud Meeting on Thursday (24/3/2022).
Yanu revealed that research is a creative process that is not always related to the strict, dry, scary, and not creative processes. Conducting research means that the researcher tries to see a phenomenon using a new perspective, understand the phenomenon, and find order in the chaotic phenomenon. “And to approach the issue with an open mind and high curiosity,” Yanu added.
Feeling lost, confused, and not knowing what to do is common in the research process, and Yanu suggested that researchers need to bring divergent and convergent mindsets, or creative thinking, to solve these issues. A divergent way of thinking involves expanding ideas, creating new connections, and exploring a new line of thoughts and possibilities. “While convergent thinking focuses on the main issue, deepening the ideas, reducing weak ideas, and changing issues into solutions,” Yanu added.
Yanu explained that the next step is determining the topic and starting the research. Yanu stated that researchers need to select topics that fully represent them so that researchers have the curiosity to discuss the topics further. “Find topics that are interesting, align with field of expertise, focus, with an integrated concept, available literature, unique, and new. Don’t forget to specialize your topic to maintain the focus,” Yanu explained.
This stage is followed by selecting the methods and approaches to solving the issues, paying attention to 5W+1H, discussing the selected topics with others to capture new perspectives and ideas, and putting the research ideas into a research proposal. Researchers also need to effectively and efficiently prepare data collection strategies, categorize their data, data processing, reporting, and master the write-up skills, including avoiding plagiarism.
The last step of the process is publishing research findings. Yanu stated that the publication is usually done in the form of journal articles that contain several parts, from abstract to recommendations. “The keys in creative research write, rewrite, and resubmit,” Yanu concluded. Humas UNS
Reporter: Lina Khoirun Nisa
Editor: Dwi Hastuti