Hi, I’m currently doing research at a university in China on pm2.5 pollution and ways to filter it. Since I only have limited time, we are working on extending and testing a graduate student’s previous work. If I write a research paper on my own results (which were collected through improving his methods), should i still submit it to a science fair (granted that I still cite his work)? How much chance do I have at winning? Thanks!
I don’t know about your area, but in my regional (Austin, TX, USA) science fair (ISEF) they seem to desire original experimentation, and while you probably could submit it (be sure to read the rules), it all depends on the amount of work that you personally put in. Are you simply using the graduate student’s data, or are you basing your project off an idea that he already had? If it’s the former and you are the one doing the majority of the work, I’d say go for it. If it’s the latter, take a look at how much work you are putting into the project. Given that it is comprable to the amount of work he may have put into the paper, then you probably still have a chance at winning.
So he came up with a method of testing the material, and I did too but mine was difficult because we would have to construct new parts, so I did the tests using his method (the data would be mine). Anyways though, we found flaws in the system so we might use my method after all. Thanks!
If you’re using his method to collect new data, that’s perfectly acceptable. However, you should add a flair of your own if you wish to win a science fair. Because you said there are flaws in the system, fix them and that should be sufficient. It would also be interesting if you got different data and were able to demonstrate that his data was inaccurate because of the flaws.
Hmm, yah. Thanks alot!