From an idea in your mind to a published paper.

A research gap is a question that published studies haven’t answered yet, or haven’t answered for your place or your group of people. Journals publish studies that fill a gap.

6 places to find one

1. “Limitations” and “future research” at the end of recent papers. Authors often write exactly what still needs to be studied.
2. No local data. Well studied abroad, but not in Pakistan, your city or your hospital.
3. Old data. The last local study is more than 5–10 years old, and things have changed since.
4. A different group. Studied in doctors but not students, in adults but not children, in cities but not villages.
5. Results that disagree. Some studies say yes and others say no, so a new, careful study helps.
6. Something new. A new guideline, medicine, test or habit (like online classes) that hasn’t been studied much yet.

Quick 5-minute check: search PubMed for your topic plus Pakistan and tick “5 years”. Very few results means you may have found a gap.

Write it like this: Although [what is known], little is known about [the gap] in [your group or place].

Example: Although skipping breakfast is common among university students worldwide, little is known about it among MBBS students in Lahore.

Who (P) · What you look at (I) · Compared with whom (C) · What you count (O)

Example: How many MBBS students (P) at our college skip breakfast (O)? There’s no comparison group here, and that’s fine.

Then check it with FINER: can you finish it (Feasible), do people want to know (Interesting), is it new here (Novel), is it safe and fair (Ethical), and is it useful (Relevant)? If any answer is “no”, make the topic smaller or change the group or place.

• Use key words, not a sentence: breakfast, "medical students"
• OR joins words that mean the same, AND joins different ideas: (breakfast OR "morning meal") AND "medical students"
• Tick the “5 years” filter so papers are recent.
• Too many results? Add another AND word. Too few? Add more OR words.

Don’t read a paper from start to end. Read it in this order, and stop as soon as you know whether it’s useful:

1. Title and abstract (2 minutes): is it about your topic?
2. Tables and figures: the main results are here.
3. Last paragraph of the introduction: the aim of the study.
4. Conclusion: what the authors think it means.
5. Methods, only for papers you will use: who, where, how many people, and how things were measured.

For each useful paper, write down: author and year, place, number of people, main finding, and one weak point. These notes become your introduction and discussion later.

Predatory journals take a fee and publish almost anything, without real review. A paper there can hurt your CV.

Warning signs

• Emails full of praise inviting you to submit.
• “Guaranteed acceptance”, or publishing within a few days.
• A made-up “impact factor”, or a website full of mistakes.
• Not listed in MEDLINE (PubMed), Scopus or DOAJ.

Before you submit: look the journal up in the HEC Journal Recognition System (HJRS), Scopus and DOAJ, and ask your mentor.

• Never copy sentences. Read, close the paper, then write the idea in your own words and add the reference number.
• Check your similarity score before submitting (your university can run Turnitin). HEC generally accepts up to 19%.
• AI tools can help fix grammar, but they often invent references that don’t exist. Check every reference on PubMed yourself.
• Never let AI write your results or make up data, and follow your journal’s rules on saying whether you used AI.

Start with one small, simple study and do it yourself from start to finish. Researchette teaches research step by step, from choosing a topic and searching PubMed to writing each part of the paper and submitting it to a journal, with a mentor checking every step. See what the lessons cover.

A mentor who has published research guides you through your own study, reviews each draft and tells you exactly what to fix. You learn by doing, not just by watching lectures.

Yes. Everything is online: your daily steps, your mentor’s feedback and chat all happen in your Researchette portal, on your phone or laptop.

No. You write it yourself and we correct every step. That keeps your work original, and you actually learn.

Yes. The roadmap starts from zero, even in first year.

We guide you through journal choice, submission and reviewer replies. The final decision is the journal’s, but our mentored students have published.

About 30 to 60 minutes a day, at your own pace.

After you apply, we email you payment details. Once it’s confirmed, you get your portal login.