After successful completion of the course, students are able to better structure their own process of realizing their diploma or master thesis, and to break it down in smaller work-packages.

The aim of this course is to provide an accompanying orientation for improving the process of thesis-writing to all master/diploma students who are writing their final thesis at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Urban Culture and Public Space. The facilitation of peer-to-peer learning and debate rounds on salient urban studies, planning theory and space-theoretical issues is an important achievement here.

This course includes active participation in the so-called 'Thesis Fenster'. All ongoing thesis projects currently carried out under primary or secondary supervision at the Interdisciplinary Center for Urban Culture and Public Space (Research Unit E280-09) will be discussed here (working languages are German, English and Spanish). In addition to the content-relevant aspects of urban research (current phenomena of urban development, public spaces, urban and everyday culture, wider issues in urban studies, etc.), we jointly explore other research issues such as research design, questions, barriers and ethics. Participants will be supported in the creation of work plans. We jointly discuss the setting up of concrete milestones along individual thesis projects. We turn the "huge" thesis project into "tiny little pieces" which can be elaborated and finalised.

Debates about research methods are key ingredients of research designs in empirical urban research and planning theory. Therefore, we will discuss these alongside each respective research project.

Please consider the plagiarism guidelines of TU Wien when writing your seminar paper: Directive concerning the handling of plagiarism (PDF)

Each set of teaching units features a new focus characterized by teaching inputs, debates and (self-organized) tasks.

• min. 80% of attendance is required
• Active participation in feedback sessions and debates is required.
• Presentation of your own topic, including updated materials
• Peer-to-peer feedback

For master students: You should have ideally finalized most of the courses and have developed a first sketch of your master thesis project ideas and you should have contacted ideally Prof. Dr. Knierbein via personal email prior to attending a thesis fenster.