How Do I Build a Model?

A starting guide for new modellers

Preface

A starting guide for new modellers

This guide is for the graduate student who is beginning to work in modelling and has asked: how do I actually build a model? I’ll assume you already know roughly what your research question is and that you have some goal in mind. If you don’t yet, that’s the first thing to sort out. But the heart of the guide is what to do once you have a question and want to turn it into a model.

Through my career I’ve never managed to find a research focus in one area of ecological modelling. I’m not the Bayesian guy or the foodweb model guy or the machine learning guy, though I’ve dabbled in all of those areas. My interests have been eclectic. This haphazard approach to a career in ecological modelling has given me a broad overview of many different approaches. I see many similarities in how scientists of different disciplines approach modelling. These are meta-principles for how to do modelling.

What I share here is a guide to meta-principles for how to start with model building. They apply to any type of modelling. Once you get to learning about a specific type of modelling then I recommend you read a book by a discipline expert. There’s a short reading list at the end that covers my favourites.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to my students. Their questions are the best source of inspiration for new ideas.

The original version of this book was dictated while taking a long drive. Claude Code cleaned up the transcript to create the first written draft and set-up the quarto book site. I then edited the book myself.