Learnt something very interesting about research today. In most cases it is possible to tell the quality and importance of a piece of research by its simplicity. The more complicated a solution, the less good the research generally is. Well, this is not true always, but most of the time. Let me try and explain why...
Any paper that is so complicated that it requires one to read ten other papers before it can be understood is in all probability nothing more than an aggregation of those ten papers. There is very rarely something new and brilliant in such papers. Most such papers are about incremental advances in the science. The bright new idea was in those ten prior papers.
A paper that is simple and easy to understand is generally an indication of the best research. In most cases it has a solution that seems so obvious, it makes one wonder why no one come up with it before! And in most cases it is not because no one was looking, but because no one realized it! Thats what makes this research so brilliant. Also it is these papers that get cited the most, and often lead to advances in areas the original authors never even thought about. And indeed it is these papers that people generally enjoy reading the most, and have the greatest WOW effect.
Well, perhaps all this is a huge generalization, but it is true in most cases!
So here is the key to doing good research: think simple, think elegant, think generic.
Posted by ankit at January 29, 2026 10:21 PM | TrackBackTruly, well put!!
The same goes for office reports. Most people try to make their reports dense, complicated, loaded with jargon. It takes threee attempts to complete a sentence and six to understand what is being conveyed.
Shucks, if only people understood the power of simplicity!
Cheers,
Dhar
Yes I fully agree with you. The best products and solutions are the ones most simple and elegant. And the best ideas are 'common sense' which unfortunately is not so common.
Posted by: BM at January 30, 2026 03:27 AMA good observation.
Posted by: ripples at January 30, 2026 11:15 AMYour research on the concept of research is quite simple to understand too ;-) So that makes your research on the simplicity of research quite amazing too. After reading your article, one realises that what so ever you said is so much true and is so obvious. Just like what you have written.
I'd like to comment upon the incrimental advances theorey of yours. I guess these incremental advances are also just as important and at times more important than revolutionary ideas. Lets take the case of the wheel. Well, you see the wheel was designed by this king long ago in order to make his cart more comfortable. The day he achieved the wheel, he was satisfied and became famous for the obvious. But it was only later that incrimental research on the wheel and the circle came up to give the "Pi" and then the resulting research on the same, which continues even now.....
Posted by: rachit at January 30, 2026 11:23 PMWell it depends. Whereas truly great papers are often simple(case in point Shamir's How to share a secret, a one page brilliant paper unmatched till today), but simple papers need not be great.
A paper being "complicated" most often than not is a personal opinion - if I pick up a very simple graphics related paper, I'll do no better than Forrest Gump..
Also while we debate on CS papers, the truly great papers(in Math, Physics, Eco., or Bio/Medicine) are always complicated. The malaise of "Incremental" research is a CS phenomena, specially weighing down systems and applications areas like networking, graphics, dbs and vision. The ability to express a complicated idea in a very simple manner is not a statement on the research being simple or obvious, rather is an indication of how articulate the person is in conveying the idea.
VJ
Well, I agree with the statement. True research should be something which seems almost OBVIOUS at first sight. But in order to achieve that, one might have to trek through obscure and arcane theory. And as long as one is at it, why not publish the obscure & arcane ?!?! For one, what seems tough & useless to one, might be the missing peice of a puzzle for someone else. A very famous quote : "Rome wasn't built in a day".
Ofcourse, incremental research is better than "NO RESEARCH" :-) Especially in this publish or perish academia !!
Posted by: Sayantan at February 14, 2026 11:43 PMSome old friends of mine have commented on this thread! Welcome to my blog, Vijay and Sayantan.
Vijay, I agree with you completely. I guess what I said was a little too loose. You obviously need to have adequate domain knowledge before you can judge what is simple and what isnt. Going to the extreme, for someone who cannot even read, understanding alphabets would also be a challenge!
Sayantan, you are right in saying that what seems so obvious once we have the results could be something that took years to be invented. In fact, that is exactly what seems to have happened in my current project. After exploring all wierd geometric shapes for the design of a mirror, it turned out that a slight modification of a plane mirror is what was needed! And now it seems so obvious...
Posted by: ankit at February 14, 2026 11:58 PM