Research Practice - csen2025.org

Statistical significance explained: unlikely by chance.

Significant Means Unlikely by Chance, Not Important

I remember sitting in a windowless seminar room during my PhD, watching a senior researcher present a series of charts where every single result was “significant,” yet the actual effect sizes were so microscopic they wouldn’t have moved the needle…

Choosing evaluation metrics for optimization success.

The Metric You Optimise Becomes the Thing You Get

I remember sitting in a windowless lab during my postdoc, staring at a loss curve that looked absolutely beautiful, while the actual system was collapsing in real-time. I had spent three weeks optimizing for a metric that looked impressive on…

Importance of control groups and baselines.

Dr. Ingrid Falk-Weller
February 24, 2026
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Research Practice

A Weak Baseline Makes Any Method Look Strong

I remember sitting in a windowless lab during my postdoc, staring at a cluster of results that looked absolutely revolutionary—until I realized we hadn’t actually accounted for the thermal drift in the hardware. We were celebrating a “breakthrough” in latency…

Dr. Ingrid Falk-Weller
February 17, 2026
(0)
Research Practice

Change One Thing or Learn Nothing

I remember sitting in a windowless lab during my postdoc, staring at a cluster of results that looked absolutely beautiful—too beautiful. I had spent three months optimizing a distributed consensus protocol, only to realize a week later that my “breakthrough”…

The Gap Is Usually Smaller Than You First Think

I spent three years in academia chasing “novelty” like it was some mystical, shimmering prize, only to realize I was just rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship. I used to think that finding the gap in prior work meant…

Applying various literature review methods.

Reading Widely Before Deciding What Is New

I remember sitting in a windowless university basement three years ago, surrounded by half-empty coffee cups and a stack of printed papers that felt more like a mountain than a foundation. I was trying to force myself to follow a…

A Question Too Broad Cannot Be Answered, Too Narrow Cannot Be Published

I remember sitting in a windowless lab during my second year of my PhD, staring at a whiteboard covered in half-baked ideas and feeling like a complete fraud. I had spent three months trying to solve a problem that was…

Four Sentences Decide Whether Anyone Reads Further

I spent three years in academia watching brilliant, technically sound research die in obscurity, not because the math was wrong, but because the gateway to the work was broken. I’ve sat through countless committee meetings where we debated the “elegance”…

Student structuring a research paper abstract.

The Abstract Is Read a Hundred Times More Than the Paper

I remember sitting in a cramped office during my second year of my PhD, staring at a LaTeX document that felt less like a scientific contribution and more like a pile of disconnected scrap metal. I had followed every “standard”…