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Was said PhD student there to teach you at the start? Most scientific methods are written as impenetrably as possible I’ve found.
For instance “ do measuring procedure to this thing” also involves a 4 hr process involving said thing with an improbable homemade piece of measuring apparatus which is never mentioned in paper.
And then people wonder why science isn’t replicable
jupiz
Big_Ted
I’m entering into CSB territory here but this happened when I did a PhD in the early 90s - not a well respected academic but building on the research of a former PhD student even if the key point was only in passing rather than the basis for their thesis.
Try as I might (and factoring in that I was a bit shit), I simply couldn’t replicate the results let alone build on them but this was apparently all down to user error. Which, given the bit shit bit, I kind of accepted.
Anyway, research went nowhere and it was only later that I found out that the key finding that I had been trying to build on was “not readily repeatable”.
Luckily I saw the funny side of things and, arguably as I was sponsored by BP, it was all karma.
EDIT - this was test tubes, pipettes, lab coats and shit