Research Methods – Scientific Writing

Individual selection of themes and research interests

Elective. Mastercourse of “Transforming City Regions”.
UNESCO Chair of Urban Design.
Univ. Prof. Christa Reicher, Faculty of Architecture, RWTH Aachen

About structuring and developing knowledge, searching for and finding valid answers to valid questions about how to resolve stated factual problems according to a hypothesis (strategy and measurements) in the respective thematical field

Guidance:

Prof. em Dr. Ing. Andrea Haase

Student-Participants:

Sona Sajan, Yingda Wu, Beyza Tanrikulu, Atefeh Safakishhamedanide, Leonard Krayer, Shanyu Ke, Yasamin Ghasemi, Yibin Chen, Shevval Bayir, Yasaman Banafshehkalaki, Kalina Asenova, Eda Akbas, Luis San Jose

Editorial Board:

Prof. em Dr. Ing. Andrea Haase, cand. MSc. Yasaman Banafshehkalaki

Lecturer: Prof. em Dr. Ing. Andrea Haase

Winter Semester 2025/2026

was oriented on teaching to build up structures for self-selected thesis themes by starting with a broad basis of knowledge from the international discourse as a deductively derived theoretical framework (for evaluating publications about theories and best practices),   by narrowing this framework onto the research focus with a statement of factual problems, a hypothesis and a research question (“the sausage in the sandwich”) and to deepen the investigation of the focus interest into an analysis of a selected case-study inductively, in order to search deeply and broadly for valid answers on the valid question (without getting lost in aiming unsuccessfully to compare here cases which were to be distinguished earlier by the theme definition as not being appropriate for comparison relative to the focus interest, because of different background conditions in geography, culture and the economy).

The course has enabled graduates (1st-3rd semester) to find individually theme-related methods to study/ research, requesting a final elaboration of text/ visualization (2-3 pages):

THEME/ RESEARCH INTEREST (one part of the THEME): Stating “factual problems” and appropriate solutions (hypothesis/ vision = strategy + measurements)
METHODOLOGY: Theme-related ways + means of investigation/ evaluation by frameworks of theory, of facts and of concepts
ANALYSIS/ DISCUSSION: Working fields/ aspects/ criteria, assuming to evaluate selected options for solutions
CONCLUSIONS: Reasoning the hypothesis by aspects of rationality and of intuition (“true judgement”)
BASIC APPROACH TO RESEARCH BY SCIENTIFIC WRITING: Innovation is not about forcing change. It is about creating conditions where transformation can take root.

The course has trained the argument of the students with themselvesthrough brainstorming/ preparing for a Final Elaboration

Defining the “starting point” of developing knowledge
Raising a “valid question” in order to achieve a “valid answer” (How to counterbalance preventatively unwanted effects of aimed to qualification?)
Enfolding a theme-related methodology for testing the hypothesis/ vision
Decoding and codifying primary and secondary data by inductive/ deductive evaluations
Contributing to “Qualifying the environment” multi-disciplinarily by multi-scale evaluation of factual conditions