pr instructions

8/8/2019 PR Instructions

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Community & Regional Planning

School of Architecture, UT Austin

PR/Thesis Workshop

1. PR vs. Thesis options2. Tips for PR/Thesis proposal

3. Q&A


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PR vs. Thesis OptionTwo options for a final project to earn MSCRP:

Internship (CRP 397) + Professional Report(CRP 398R)

Masters Thesis(CRP 698A Thesis Research + CRP 698BThesis Writing)


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PR/Thesis in MSCRP Curriculum

Year 1, Fall Year 1, Spring

CRP 980X (Mueller)Planning Theory & Practice(Planning History and Theory)

CRP 386 (Paterson)Plans and Plan-making

CRP 381 (Rawlins)Planning Law

CRP 980Y (Zhang)Planning Theory & Practice(Regional Analysis Methods)

CRP 386 (Kahn)Quantitative Methods

CRP 381 (Wilson)Participatory Methods

Elective Elective

18 Credit Hours of Core Courses

6 Credit Hours of Electives


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Year 2, Fall Year 2, Spring

CRP 980Z (Lee)

Planning Theory & Practice(Physical Planning Workshop)

Elective

CRP 381 (Oden)Financing Public Services

Elective

CRP 397 (Zhang)Planning Internship Reportor CRP 698AThesis Research

CRP 398RMasters Professional Report (PR)or CRP 698BThesis Writing

Elective Elective

6 Credit Hours of Core Courses

12 Credit Hours of Electives

6 Credit Hours of Internship-PR or Thesis

Internship done in summer or fall and credits earned in the semester

when you are registered


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Internship (CRP 397) Requirement http://soa.utexas.edu/crp/internships

Required for PR option

An internship is any planning-related job, paid or unpaid, that involves 300 or more hours of work andthat promises some professional developmentbenefits.


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Internship Requirement (cont) Paper work (submit to Rosemin)

A letter from your employer that states that he/she understandsthat you are earning credit for your work and that gives a brief description of the kind of work you will be doing.

An Internship Report : By the end of the semester registered for internship, submit either:

A 10-page, double-spaced report that describes your experience, your work and what you learned; or

A copy of a report/publication or project that is mainly your work along with a 2-3 page report that describes your contribution to submitted work product.


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Thesis Research (CRP 698A) Requirement

Thesis proposal approved by your thesiscommittee

Sign up for 698ADeliverables: work out between you and your committee


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PR/Thesis Proposal Deadlines

Proposal Approval ( The Purple Form ) PR proposal: One semester in advance Thesis proposal: Two semesters in advance

PR/Thesis Drafts: The last class day of thesemester registered for graduation


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PR/Thesis Deadlines


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Work with your PR/Thesis Committee

1. Identify a topic, conduct initial research andproduce a proposal draft

2. Identify two or more committee members (readers).

The first reader must be a CRP faculty (CRP GSCmember)

3. Complete a 7-10 page full proposal approved byyour readers and submit the approved proposal by

the PR or Thesis Proposal deadline

4. Complete PR/Thesis writing and submit PR/Thesisfinal draft to the Graduate School by the deadlines


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PR/Thesis Format/Template RequirementsOGS requires specific format for your PR/Thesis. Meeting format

requirements involves three steps:

1. Review theFormat Guidelines for the Master's Thesis and Report Themanual discusses the arrangement of your thesis or PR,copyright information, and includes front and back matter sample documents.

2. Review the ITS Template User Guide and use theITS thesis template

Pre-formatted THESIS template (not dissertation) that containspredefined styles.

3. Obtain formal format approval from an OGS Master's DegreeEvaluator


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Tips for PR/Thesis ProposalFive Ws for a research proposal

What is your research about? (research question)

Why is it important or interesting (to whom)?

What have other people said (found) on your topic(lit. review)?

How will you conduct the proposed research

(method data and ways to obtain the data,analytical techniques, et al)

When will you carry out the planned researchactivities?


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What is your research question?

Moving from Interest to Topic to Problem to Question

Identify a topic from the area of your researchinterests

Asking a question about the phenomenon youobserved in practice or in literature

Speculate some answers to the question inhypothetical conditions

Ask more questions


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Different Nature of Research Different Kinds of

Questions

Interpretative Descriptive

Exploratory Explanatory Predictive

Nature of research strongly tied with methodof research


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Interpretative

Whats been done and understood? Review Meta-study: Study of studies


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Descriptive

Precise measurement and reporting of thecharacteristics of the population or phenomenon

What is the case? What is the nature of the relationship?

E.g., What is the level of job accessibility of the

low-income, ethnic minority population in theAustin, TX area?


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Exploratory

To develop an initial, rough understanding of aphenomenon

What is out there?

Open-ended

E.g., Attitude of local communities to high-speed rail development in Texas


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Explanatory

Why Is x the case? or Why Is x the relationship?

E.g., What factors affect the level of jobaccessibility of the low-income, ethnic minoritypopulation in the Austin, TX area?


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How to identify a research topic and definea research question

Start from theory and test/verify it in a particular situation.

Apply Alonsos theory to study Austins urbanspatial structure

Address unresolved issues in the field.

Land use/transportation impacts: chicken-&-egg

Road pricing policy is not working in mostplaces in the world. Why?


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How to identify a research topic and definea research question

Evaluate a policy or action. Proposal for a bus rapid transit line along

Guatalupe

Impacts of fare increase proposed by CapMetro

Identify knowledge gap in the field. Trends of inter-city travel in mega-regions

The extent to which rail transit affect land valuesalong the Redline in Austin,


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Refine your question by

Presenting and elaborating on your initialresearch question in different formats:

In question format, a sentence ending with aquestion mark,?.

In purpose statement format:The purpose of this research is

In hypothesis format: Hypo 1; Hypo 2, ..

In equation format: y=a + bx + cz


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Exercise (by yourself)

What is your research question? What type of question it is (one of the above

four or others)? Can you describe your question in 1-2

sentences? Can you express your question in various

format mentioned before?


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Formulate Research Questions:

How to do literature review


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General Remarks

Research begins with a problem/question

Most find the writing of a literature review

a difficult task that takes patience,practice, drafts, and redrafts

Reviewing the Literature vs. The

Literature Review

Be critical but objective


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Reasons for reviewing theliterature Informing yourself of what is happening in the field

Gaining a level of topical and methodologicalknowledge and expertise

Finding potential gaps in the literature that maypoint to potential research questions

Critically evaluating common/typical methods

Facilitating the development of your ownmethodological approaches


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Questions your literaturereview should answer

6. What views need to be (further) tested?

7. What evidence is lacking, inconclusive,contradictory or too limited?

8. Why study (further) the research problem?

9. What contribution can the present study be

expected to make?

10. What research designs or methods seemunsatisfactory?


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Ask yourself questions like these abouteach article you review

Has the author formulated a problem/issue?

Is its significance (scope, severity,relevance) clearly established?

Has the author evaluated the literaturerelevant to the problem/issue?

Does the author include literature takingpositions she or he does not agree with? Isit balanced and objective?


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Ask yourself questions like these abouteach article you review

What is the author's theoretical framework?Empirical evidence to test theory adequate andappropriate for research question?

Could the problem have been approached moreeffectively from another perspective? Are methodsand results plausible? Or problematic?

What are the key findings? Measures? Future

Research?

How does this book or article relate to the specificthesis or question I am developing?


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Some tips about conducting theliterature review Concentrate your efforts on the scientific

literature. Try to determine what the mostcredible research journals are in your topicalarea and start with those.

Put the greatest emphasis on research journals that use a double blind review.

Do the review early in the research process. You are likely to learn a lot in the literaturereview that will help you in making thetradeoffs you'll need to face.


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Mings Literature ReviewTemplateFor each article/book, take notes on the following:

1. Citation: article title, author, publicationyear, journal, etc.

2. Main topic, research questions3. Analytical framework and methodology4. Main results and findings5. Comments (strength and weakness of the

study)


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Another Literature Review

TemplateDecompose each article into three parts: Theory/framework Method/Data

Findings


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Decompose each article into 3parts: #1

Theory/framework


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Decompose each article into 3parts: #2 Method/Data


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Decompose each article into 3parts: #3 Results/Findings


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Murphy's Laws of Research (1)

1st Law of the Research Question : If you havefinalized your research question, you don'tunderstand the literature.

2nd Law of the Research Question : Only whenyou have clarified your research question willyou discover a large body of conflicting findings.

3rd Law of the Research Question : Your studywill only make sense as long as your researchquestion is hazy.


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Law of Inverse Self-Reward : The more you enjoy your research, the less data there is to support it.

Fallacy of the Library Researcher : Somewhere there is areference (the "Ultimate Reference") which will give youa stunningly brilliant opening and conclusion, tie your materials together and give you the premise for your firstbook. ( The search for this kind of thing has delayeddissertations for years, and forced advisers to threaten

the student with bodily harm if the search is notabandoned.)


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1st Law of Research : If you think of something new, it'sbeen done.

2nd Law of Research : If you think something isimportant, no one else will.

3rd Law of Research : If you throw it away, someoneelse will publish it, obtain a grant, write a book, and geton the Oprah Winfrey show.


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1st Law of Theory : No theory will answer the importantquestions. Corollary : All theories are irrelevant.

2nd Law of Theory : All theories seem workable inconversations.

Law of Importance : When you think you have discoveredthe real problem, you have not.

Corollary : When you are sure it is not important, it is

Law of Remaining Time : If there is a significantbreakthrough, it will occur when your adviser is out of thecountry.

Corollary : When your adviser is available, you will bemired in confusion.


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