How I Think About My Research Process: Explore, Understand, Distill

Thanks for this sequence, Neel!

Executive summary: In this first post of a sequence, the author presents a personal, experience-based framework for the research process—explore, understand, distill—aimed at demystifying and structuring research in fields like mechanistic interpretability, while acknowledging that research is inherently messy, emotionally difficult, and highly individual.

Key points:

1. Research process overview: The author divides research into four stages—ideation, exploration, understanding, and distillation—each with a clear "north star" goal and common pitfalls to be aware of.
2. Exploration vs. understanding: Many junior researchers mistakenly think they should have clear hypotheses early on; the author stresses that initial work should focus on exploratory information-gathering and curiosity-driven experiments.
3. Research taste matters: Good research involves not only choosing promising problems but also noticing interesting anomalies, designing sharp experiments, and communicating findings clearly, all guided by a cultivated "research taste."
4. Emotional challenges are normal: Frustration, imposter syndrome, and frequent dead ends are inherent to research; the author encourages focusing on the process, seeking feedback from reality, and developing sustainable work habits.
5. Importance of communication: Clear, rigorous distillation and write-up are crucial both for self-understanding and broader impact, and should not be treated as an afterthought or rushed just before deadlines.
6. Iterative mindset: The research stages are fluid—it's normal and valuable to cycle back to exploration or understanding when distillation reveals unresolved questions or messy results.

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