First, the difference between graduate students and college students

First of all, let me explain the difference between graduate students and college students. College students are basically here to receive knowledge. In China, they don't have a master's degree, but in the west, their original intention is to congratulate you on your innovation in universal human knowledge. This kind of innovation, big or small, is a contribution to universal knowledge. This innovation will not be different because you are local or not, so we must work very hard and think deeply about the first one. College students are different from graduate students.

(A) choose their own problem orientation, learn to innovate

Once you go to graduate school, you will enter another stage, not only enjoying it completely, but also accepting all kinds of interesting knowledge and entering the stage of manufacturing knowledge, which means that your thesis should be innovative. From accepting knowledge to creating knowledge is the biggest feature of being a graduate student. Not only that, but also realize that you are no longer a container, waiting for the teacher to pour things into the teacup, but you should start to develop step by step and develop yourself. As a graduate student, I no longer accept all kinds of novel courses, but pay attention to the problem-oriented arrangement, that is, in the master's or doctoral stage, all my energy, all my courses and books should have a focus of attention, rather than being aimless like a university. When you are a college student, you should try to create yourself to accept anything, but when you are a master student and a doctoral student, you have an ultimate goal, that is to finish your thesis, which is the confluence of all your personal martial arts, so you must have a problem-oriented learning at this time.

(B) try interdisciplinary research, active learning

Asking an important question and crossing an important field will determine your future success or failure. I have also taught at National Taiwan University and Tsinghua for more than ten years. I often tell students that choosing the right field and choosing the right question is the key to success or failure. You must explore the infinite world of knowledge with your own questions, because you are no longer overwhelmed like you were in college. Therefore, during this period, we must choose a topic that we are interested in and concerned about as the starting point to explore this knowledge and create an organic cycle. Because you are naturally curious about this question, your attitude is completely different from that of undergraduates. You gradually change from a passive receiver to an active explorer and learn to swim in this academic field.

However, another important stage for graduate students is to learn how to learn, not just to learn, but to learn how to learn. Instead of buying a beautiful dress, learn to pick up the needle, learn to embroider a beautiful dress, and slowly learn to set your goal on a standard, which is the master's or doctoral thesis you will complete in the future. If you go to a first-class university in the west, you will think that my thesis may be compared with those who have done the same topic all over the world. I think even in * * *, you should have such a mood. Your standards should not only be placed on a few people next to you, but on the people in the field. Your article must be innovative in order to meet the standards, meet the Latin doctoral certificate we just mentioned above, and make contributions and innovations.

Second, how do teachers train graduate students?

Second, as a teacher, how do you train graduate students? I think the cultivation of humanities and social sciences, even the cultivation of natural sciences, should be more like a tutorial system at the graduate stage, so the close interaction and learning between individuals and teachers, individuals and peers is very important, which is different from sitting there and simply listening to lectures and leaving after listening. In contrast, your life should be combined with the knowledge and solutions you pursue, and your future life should be more or less related to this exploration.

(A) make good use of the partnership with teachers, continuous research.

I often say that the word research in English is very meaningful. Search is search, research is search again, so everyone should study and search again and again to integrate your life and study. Jiang Baili, a master of modern military science in China, once said in his book Military Science: "Living conditions should be consistent with combat conditions. In modern Europe, those who meet the living and fighting conditions are strong, and those who do not meet the living and fighting conditions are weak. " This is my explanation of graduate life. Your living conditions should be consistent with your fighting conditions. Your life is growing up with teachers and classmates, and every word you hear may bring you infinite inspiration.

(2) Enter the research field through a lot of reading and guidance from teachers.

Personally, I think there are only two ways to enter a field. One of them is to keep him studying and reporting. This is the fastest and most convenient way to enter a strange field. Eventually, students will unconsciously know what is in this field. When we are constantly learning, we may often indulge in details, and then lose the panorama, resulting in seeing only the trees but not the forest, or being trapped by those few words of English and forgetting what the whole situation is talking about. With the student's report, the teacher can tell or clarify the essence. A few words from the teacher will help them gradually get through the second pulse of Ren Du, gradually develop a spontaneous learning ability, and also know what to look at when encountering problems. For example, when I was studying in the United States, I learned the history of some countries that I had no background knowledge at all, and I have been absorbing it by myself. The teacher just kept opening the bibliography and trained slowly. One day, when I stopped studying it, I found that I still have the ability to produce and store it myself, because I know what the outline of this knowledge is and I have the ability to query relevant information when I encounter problems. Therefore, it is very important to make efforts to extend your study spontaneously.

(c) Practice writing papers step by step.

The most important thing for a master or doctor is to complete a dissertation, no matter it is a master's or doctor's dissertation, its scale is far longer than the education you have received since primary school and what you want to write. Although I don't know what educational papers are like, all historical papers should be written with 200,000 to 300,000 words, otherwise it will be 10 to 200,000 words. How can we write such a large space in an orderly way, clearly organized, with a smooth overall structure and strong readability? First of all, we should train step by step from 1000, 5000 and 10000. First, write more slowly from less, and practice in a very short time until you can write from 10 thousand words to 100 thousand words. Anyone can write such a large paper, but the question is whether it is well written, because there are so many footnotes in such a large text, we should also pay attention to the beginning and end, so that the discussion can be integrated instead of scattered copper coins; This is an auditorium, not a small attic. To complete a large, complete and organic building model, it is necessary to practice slowly from a small scale, which is the most effective method.

Because of the influence of computer, I found that many students' ability to write articles decreased obviously. When writing a paper, it is very important to be clear, not flashy, not beautiful. Clarity is the highest guiding principle. After slow practice, your writing will be consistent with your thinking. I often tell students that you don't need to write flashy and show your prose ability. Because this is an academic paper, the key is to write it very clearly. If you write well, so much the better, but you can't be satisfied. Literary talent is like a person's life, and English is called style. Style itself is a bit like human nature. Therefore, the most important thing is to state the content clearly. From 10,000 words to the last 100,000 words, everything should be well structured, clearly stated and clearly written.

When I was a student, there was Lawrence Si Tong, a master of European history and English history. He's dead now. A book interviewed ten of the greatest historians. I remember he made a very attractive remark in the interview. He said that his English writing is quite good, so he has never been rejected in his life. Therefore, clear writing or good writing plays a decisive role in the acceptability of future articles. Content is very important, and it is even more important to have a good expression tool, but here we are not paying attention to beautiful writing style, but making it clear.

Third, how do graduate students exercise themselves?

(a) Try to accept the challenge and have the courage to overcome it

How do graduate students exercise themselves? Give yourself a challenge every day, week or month. Give yourself a challenge every once in a while and challenge what you can't do. You don't have to ask yourself to overcome that challenge every time, but try hard. In my study career, I met too many smart people who accomplished nothing, because they were easily trapped by their own obstacles. For example, I met a very smart person at Princeton University, who just couldn't overcome the challenges he gave himself. He always looks around. Although I also have this problem, I will give myself a challenge regularly, for example, I will tell myself to do it anyway within a certain period of time. Otherwise, I must finish this draft this week. Although I still can't finish it often, having this challenge is different from not having this challenge, because I will always finish it once after three challenges, and it is enough to finish it once, which is enough to show that I have defeated myself. If I think the feasibility of the weekly challenge is too low, I can extend the time to a one-month challenge to challenge what you may not be able to do. However, it should also be remembered that master students are just beginning to enter this field. If the problem is too small at first, or too big to control, it will cause difficulties for future research.

(2) Writing a thesis is a training process, and the completion of classic works cannot be forced.

You should remember my former teacher said: "Master and doctor are a process of training, and master and doctor are not a process of writing classics." I have met many people, including my relatives and friends. The reason why he can't write a master's thesis or doctoral thesis well is because he regards it as a process of writing classics, although in fact, many people's best works in their lives are master's thesis or doctoral thesis, because it is difficult to immerse themselves in a subject and cultivate it repeatedly for three or six years after that. When you are a professor, like me, you are obsessed with administration today. You no longer have enough time to explore a problem, especially as a professor, you have to guide students and attend classes, so you are very busy, so the most concentrated and essential time in his life is, of course, when he writes a doctoral or master's thesis, so it is not surprising that that book has become the most important book in his life.

You don't have to force it. You have to have faith, this is a training process. You should know where to start and where to put it down, and don't pursue it indefinitely. Of course, I don't deny the importance of this process. I just want to adjust my mentality, aiming at finishing my thesis, and not to be a psychological obstacle or burden. There are too many examples in this regard. When I was studying at Princeton University, there was a knowledgeable old bookstore owner there. I often say to him enviously, "Why don't you become a professor at the university?" He said, "Because I haven't finished my doctoral thesis. The reason is that he regards that doctoral thesis as a classic, and of course it will never be finished. It would be best if it could be written as a classic, just like john nash, the hero of the movie Beautiful New Realm. His greatest contribution in life is more than 20 pages of doctoral thesis, but remember not to take that as a goal, because it is naturally formed. You should tell yourself firmly that what you want to complete is a paper with rigorous structure, clear discussion and substantive content. Don't expect it to be a classic from the beginning. If you expect it to be a classic, you may become the owner of the old bookstall I saw. As for why I knew he had so much knowledge, it was because I was looking for a book, but not in a second-hand bookstore, but he told me, "There are many books that can compare with him. "Later, after I learned a little about that field, it turned out to be as he suggested. Being good at this, the owner of a second-hand bookstore has read every book, but he can never finish his fantastic dissertation because he doesn't know where to put it down. All this became empty talk.

(C) the formal writing of the paper

1. Learn to choose.

When writing a paper, you should be able to take advantage of your ability, because there are too many books to read in the information explosion, so you must build your own knowledge tree. First of all, you should have your own knowledge tree and hang relevant things on that tree, but don't hang irrelevant things all the time, slowly give up some things that can't be hung up, and then let this knowledge tree have branches and leaves with your problems and areas of concern. However, how to form this knowledge tree? As a first step, you must be very familiar with useful books or data in your field of concern.

2. Form your knowledge tree

Yesterday, I asked Academician Yu-sheng Lin, who is over 70 years old this year. I told him that I was going to give a speech today, so I asked him, "What would you say if you talked about this topic? He said: "There is only one thing, that is, all five or six important books should be read several times. "Because Mr. Yu-sheng Lin is a Heyeke, and there are several students of modern thinkers at the University of Chicago, an important part of their training is intensive reading of the original classics. This sentence is very reasonable. Although you can't just read those important books, those five or six books will gradually form the backbone of your knowledge tree. If you want to hang on it later, you can refer to this framework and then temporarily put aside irrelevant things. Life is short, and knowledge is short. You can't read all the good books in the world, so you should learn to choose between them. You should know that you can't read all the books you are interested in, and once you have read all the books you are interested in, you are likely to end up like the owner of the old bookstore in Princeton Street, because reading too much is not the knowledge in your field of concern, but just a dollar for you.

Master tools

At this stage, we must master the language and appropriate tools. If you want to have a foreign language that you can read fluently, if you want to have another language that you can at least understand the title of the article, it is better to learn more, but at least one language, whether it is English, Japanese or French. You must be able to read relevant books fluently, which is the minimum prerequisite. Once this tool is gone, your vision will be greatly limited, because Chinese is like a skylight, without which your room will be closed. Why do you want to understand the topic? Because then there won't be an important article and you don't know it. If you can't even read the title, you don't know how to ask for help or check the relevant data yourself. You must master other tools, whether statistics or any other tools, because you have no time to learn such tools in the future.

4. Break through the boundaries between disciplines

Interdisciplinary learning should be a very important thing, but what is involved in interdisciplinary must be helpful to your knowledge tree. You should learn to steal a few shots from other fields, absorb some concepts from other fields, and have a different kind of inspiration for the problems you care about, but don't overflow and never return. Why did you steal those shots? In recent decades, it has been found that the most innovative parts of both science and humanities occur at the intersection of disciplines. Why is this happening? Because most of our current disciplines were formed in the West19th century, and China lent them to us. When the division of these knowledge disciplines was formed in the19th century, many of them had the ideological and academic background of that era. For example, Dean Li of Academia Sinica majored in physical chemistry, and he won the Nobel Prize for working at the junction of physics and chemistry. Just like the Nobel Prize in Economics, if the prize awarded in the past 20 years is just a sideline in the traditional economics prize, how can there be such a thing in classical economics? Even psychologists have won the Nobel Prize in Economics, and even mathematician john nash has won the Nobel Prize in Economics. Why? Because they are all at the boundary of disciplines, the boundary between disciplines and platforms has made a breakthrough. In the platform itself, in the original subject core, it has been searched too many times, and there may not be much innovation, so why interdisciplinary learning is a very important thing.

Often the master's thesis or doctoral thesis is the most important and key concept, but usually you can't catch it in this subject because you have been immersed in this subject for too long, and you have taken photos in this small warehouse with a flashlight for too long, forgetting that there are other things that can better explain the phenomenon of your materials, but these things are hard to find. Why did mathematician john nash win the Nobel Prize in Mathematics? Why did his doctoral thesis on game theory win the Nobel Prize in Economics several decades later? Because he had an introductory course in economics in college, he thought that mathematics could be used to think about economics, but at the beginning, he didn't think it would be so useful. He made a breakthrough in the combination of mathematics and economics. Sometimes it doesn't matter much in this part of economics, and it doesn't matter much in this part of mathematics, but when they are added together, there will be sparks.

5. The theme of the paper should be malleable.

For a master student or doctoral student, if you choose the wrong topic, it is a failure. If you choose the right topic, you still have a 70% chance of winning. This problem is worth thinking about by the students of Yanyi and Boyi. Your first year was actually spent on it. You should keep discussing with the teacher to find a meaningful and extensible problem, and it should not be too difficult. I am the director of humanities in the National Science Council. When I left, there were 7000 applications every time, and there were 14000 bags to be sent to 14000 professors for review. Of course, I can't read that much, but I have an important task, which is to read complaints. Some complainants think: "My research plan is very good, and my work is also very good. I am here to complain. Only about 10% of the appeals passed, so I have the responsibility to look at 90% of the cases that failed before the formal judgment. There are a few things that impress me the most and are often discussed, that is, this topic does not need to be done any more, and the topic itself has not developed much, which makes me more sure that it is very important to choose a meaningful, extensible, controllable and operable topic.

My students often choose very difficult topics. I said you must not do this, because no one will carefully look at the difficulty of your research. For more difficult topics, you have to spend more time reading historical materials to gain something. You have to squeeze a lot of things to filter out a little content, so you'd better choose a topic with moderate difficulty.

I have written several books, and I feel that my heart is the same for each book. Although I am not satisfied with anything I wrote, I racked my brains to write it well in the process. So far, many people think that my best book is the one I wrote when I first arrived at the College of History and Language in my twenties. I didn't spend much time on that book. Most of the manuscripts of that book were written by Mr. Xu and me in the military camp at the same time, all with my old notes. In recent years, many mainland publishing houses have repeatedly requested the publication of my previous books, especially this one. I said, "No.""Because I used my old reading notes, I'm afraid there are typos in the quotations, because I have to do exercises at any time in the military camp and assemble at any time, and I don't have any books at hand. How can I check it? And if I have to correct it again, I really don't have the strength to correct it because there are too many books cited.

Why give this example? I thought about it later, the reason why the book is better may be because the title is malleable and the title is easy to fluctuate. Many people think that my best book should be the one published by Cambridge University, but I think my best book must be written in Chinese, because I can master this language, but I can't master English perfectly. You must practice reading and writing any language until you are free, and then you can say that you know the language completely and are good at it. If you can't be spontaneous, it means that you are still groping.

Back to what I said just now, in fact, I really want to write every book and paper well. But some things can't be written well. Why? Because the topic I chose was not good enough. Therefore, all your training and efforts will be valuable only after you choose a topic. I suggest that you do a good job in selecting a topic as soon as possible. The materials to be processed in selecting a topic should be concentrated and not too scattered, because master students may only have three years and doctoral students may only have five years. If your materials are too unfocused, reading or reading materials may take up most of your time, leaving you no extra time to think. And this topic should be suitable for your sexual orientation. If you don't know statistics or hate numbers, but choose a paper that depends entirely on statistics, it is impossible to do well.

6. Develop the habit of writing according to academic format.

There is also a basic training, that is, whether you write 10,000 words, 30,000 words or 50,000 words at ordinary times, you should develop the habit of following academic norms, which will be natural. That is to say, the footnotes and format of your thesis should be cultivated into a part of your life from the beginning of the postgraduate stage. If you don't form this habit, others will think that this paper is not rigorous, and it will take a lot of time to revise it later, because your paper is very large, maybe hundreds of pages. If you make a mistake at the beginning, and then change it from beginning to end, it must be time-consuming and laborious. So we should get into the habit from the beginning, because we write papers instead of essays, and there are certain rules about where to put commas, where to use book titles, where to use quotation marks and what punctuation marks to use. Chinese writing is ok, and English has a lot of abbreviations. In the1960s, when the knowledge of * * * was still very closed, a person came back from America and said, "The situation in America is terrible because there is a very terrible person. Someone asked him why he was so surprised, and he said, "Because this man's works are quoted everywhere. "His name is ditto, and the so-called ditto is the former author. This word is derived from Latin, which has many abbreviations, such as et. Al. It was edited by two people. There is a book, The Chicago Manual of English Style, which specifically explains these writing norms. You should learn Chinese and English writing norms as soon as possible, practice slowly, and finally write casually, so as to write articles that meet the norms.

7. Make good use of the library

The library should be the most important place for graduate students. You don't have to read every book, but you should know which books can be read. I remember when I was a student, all the new books were posted on the wall of the library. The most important thing for a student is to have a look at the title. To some extent, knowing the book cover is enough, but it is still different from playing computer. In fact, you should be familiar with this book, touch it and look at the table of contents. I know I can find the title of the book from the computer now, but I still cherish the feeling of browsing new books regularly or seeing what books in related fields look like. Academician of Academia Sinica, Professor of Information Department of Harvard University. He told me that at the peak of his creativity, he went to the library of their information department to read important information periodicals every week. So the library should be the most familiar place for graduate students. But don't spend time looking at unimportant things. You live in an era of information flooding, which is different from what I grew up in an era of information poverty. You should be able to make a choice. I often see students quoting some third-rate papers, but it has aroused great interest. I sympathize with him because I emphasize reading useful and valuable things.

8. Set aside time and think carefully

Remember to give yourself some time to think. Whether a paper can be superb and fascinating, it is very important to think conceptually about the phenomenon, but I am not talking about taking a theoretical route, but reminding everyone to improve two or three steps on the general level and conceptualize what they see. I really get it. What do you see? What is the overall meaning? What is the outline of the whole? Don't be overwhelmed by tiny details. Although small details are your most important start, you should always leave some time to think and settle down slowly. Conceptualization is a very difficult thing to teach. I remember when I was studying, a teacher vowed to teach students how to conceptualize, but it never happened because it was very difficult to teach. I want to remind you that when you are overwhelmed by many materials and details, you should jump out and think in time. What's the significance of what you see? Whether this meaning is widely linked to the value of knowledge on a larger level.

Mr. Fu Sinian came to * * *, and served as the director of the Institute of History and Linguistics of Academia Sinica and the president of National Taiwan University. Taiwan Province University has a big clock, which rings 2 1 time every hour and strikes 2 1 time. Once upon a time, a man wrote a book called "The Bell Strikes Twenty-one", which was very sensational at that time. At that time, he explained that 2 1 is a salute to welcome the head of state, because NTU students are very good. Not long ago, I found that National Taiwan University erected bronze medals under every important historical site. I carefully read Fu Zhong's explanation, only to know that it was because when Fu Sinian was the president of National Taiwan University, he once said that "people only have 2 1 hour a day, and the other three hours are used for thinking." That's why it is called twenty-one. I think this sentence is very reasonable, but I think three hours may be too much, because graduate students are very busy, but at least 30 minutes and an hour should be left every day to think and think about what you see. Learn to think at a higher level than you see.

9. Find an example to learn from

When I first came to the United States to study, every time I wrote a report, my scalp was extremely heavy, because our English report was thirty or forty pages, and if there were four courses a semester, it would be 160 pages, but you should learn footnotes from the beginning. Later, I found a good way, that is, every time I want to write, I put a piece of paper I like next to it. Although the topic he wrote has nothing to do with me, I always watch how he writes, read his footnotes, read a few lines, and then start writing. Just like the most famous tenor Pavarotti, he always takes a handkerchief when singing opera, because he said, "Going on stage is like going to hell, so nervous. In order to overcome his nervousness, he has the habit of holding a white handkerchief. I think the printing paper of that year was like my white handkerchief, which made me write this report well. I learned how to think, how to conceive, how to take care of the whole group and how to make footnotes in English. Reading the master's works well and starting to imitate and learn from him is the best way to get started. Gradually, you will start writing your own things. I also often encourage my students to go abroad for half a year or a year. For example, there are various opportunities to broaden the horizons of the National Science Council, and you can know what dishes the restaurant is selling now, and you won't know how to start until you come back to cook for yourself.

Fourth, walk on two legs and practice to cultivate your interest.

Last but not least, our life is two feet, and we don't walk with one foot. When you are a graduate student, of course, you should put all your thoughts into your study and explore the problems you want to explore, but that's just one foot, and the other foot is to study and cultivate one or two interests. Many people will later find that his right foot is particularly fat (including myself), because he forgot to cultivate his left foot. Many famous scholars finally fell into extreme mental distress, because he only cultivated his right foot and forgot to cultivate his left foot. He forgot to walk on two feet in his life, and he lost a little interest or hobby to mediate or dismiss himself.

Last summer, Hong Kong Asia Weekly wanted to interview me, and I said, "I don't want to be interviewed. I am not important. But then they published a simple conversation, and I only remember one of them: being a graduate student or a scholar has two most important feelings-responsibility and guilt. You must have a strong sense of responsibility when writing well. If the sense of responsibility is not strong enough, you must feel guilty, too. If you don't work for a few hours today, you will feel guilty. Unless he is a great genius, even Einstein needs to work hard. Many great people, he just concentrated all his efforts on one hundred pages. He spent 1000 hours, while the other man only spent 10 hours. Of course, compared with me, the articles written in those 1000 hours are better. So why choose a topic quickly? Because if you choose too late, you only have one year to train well. If you choose early, you can train for two or three years. Is it better to do something for three years or one year? If we all have the same intelligence, it is certainly better to put in three years of hard work and thinking than one year.

Fifth, build excellent universities and share academic atmosphere.

Now many people are discussing, what is an excellent university? I think a good university, a large part of school life, and many activities on campus are directly or indirectly related to learning. Students will also talk about academic related topics directly or indirectly in the coffee shop. The professors are eating in the dining room. They are talking about "Have you found anything new"? Or did someone say something important in the speech that day? Only a university immersed in this atmosphere can become an excellent university. That kind of exchange of ideas and knowledge, that kind of atmosphere of mutual education, can not be obtained by spending money. I know money is important, but it is not the only thing. An excellent university, a good university and a good learning environment mean a common focus. Without it, this school can't be a good university.