Is it fair to say Vollmer is the best German NFL player ever ? He was a Top 5 RT in his prime . <| sep |> I ' d ask somebody in the lab , or even the professor , to send you some of the bigcrucial papers relating to the photochemistry and catalyst design stuff that they ' re working on . Just ask for some literature so you can start getting yourself up to speed with the field and what your group is doing . As you read and become more familiar with the work out there , you ' ll start to notice avenues for further investigation open up , stuff people don ' t seem to have tried yet , conditions and dependencies that haven ' t been probed , new applications that might be possible . Make sure to talk to your group about your ideas so you can get feedback and learn from them . You ' ll probably also learn about things that people tried but which didn ' t pan out , and they might help you mentally solidify some concepts . You can also ask your professor for some direction in terms of where you could start , what looks most promising , ect . Though it sounds like if he really wanted you to be doing something specific he wouldn ' t have given you pretty wide leeway . I read somewhere that you should have a paper concept in mind when you plan and carry out your experiments , so that way you ' re always purposefully doing something that will help you tell a story . I guess it might keep a person focused .