What is Novelty in Research?

How can I achieve novelty in research and how I should highlight it? Novelty is an important aspect of any research especially, in modern times we need novel research. There is a lot of work going on but most of them lack it.

Review a lot

As a researcher we must first accept that we need a lot of pre-research before we actually work on our own project. This helps us understand the work that is already done by other researchers. Also it tells us what are the areas that require more research. So, it gives us a good idea about a novel topic. Sometimes, there are some loopholes in knowledge that we can work and solve a problem.

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A thorough literature review is required to generate a good idea for your research. Read a lot of research papers, books, journals, and other materials that has relevant literature. And ask yourself what is the best possible topic that can help you conduct a novel research.

Generally speaking, a topic that has deficit literature available is good to research because it can add to the novelty. But, it is sometimes difficult to conduct research on such topics. The need extensive data collection and analysis because of scarcity of previous data to confirm your point.

Significance check

Check the significance of your research to the general and specific population. There is no point to conduct a research that has no significance. The significance of your research makes your research novel and unique. Sometimes, we write a research that is not completely unique but the approach to conduct the research is unique. Very few research are completely novel, most have some novelty and that is fine.

This also highlights another important point that if you do not find anything unique about your research you should change your topic. Else, you can think about a different way to conduct research on the same topic.

There is a lot going on in terms of research you can check different databases to make sure that the topic and approach you are taking for the research is novel in some way. Ask your research advisor for further help in checking the novelty of the topic.

Highlight the novelty

The novelty of your research speaks for itself, however, it is a good idea to highlight it in your research. Write down how your study is different from the other past studies and what novel idea it represents. What is it that you achieved through your study? This will also help highlight the originality, validity, and creativity in your research to the readers.

There are many ways you can highlight your novelty in research. The most important, of course, is the problem that you solve through this study. Sometimes, you use a novel methodology to solve a problem, so, mention it in the materials and methods section. Otherwise, you can write the novelty of your research in the introduction section as well. The conclusions of your research also present a good area where you need to tell the readers how your study solves a problem. And, how it adds to the current knowledge gap. Add points in the discussion section about the findings of the research and how those findings can help.