Book excerpt: What is it like to be a researcher or a scientist? For young people, including graduate students and junior faculty members in universities, how can they identify good ideas for research? How do they conduct solid research to verify and realize their new ideas? How can they formulate their ideas and research results into high-quality articles, and publish them in highly competitive journals and conferences? What are effective ways to supervise graduate students so that they can establish themselves quickly in their research careers? In this book, Ling and Yang answer these questions in a step-by-step manner with specific and concrete examples from their first-hand research experience. Table of Contents: Acknowledgments / Preface / Basics of Research / Goals of Ph.D. Research / Getting Started: Finding New Ideas and Organizing Your Plans / Conducting Solid Research / Writing and Publishing Papers / Misconceptions and Tips for Paper Writing / Writing and Defending a Ph.D. Thesis / Life After Ph.D. / Summary / References / Author Biographies