MLA THESIS GUIDELINES

Purpose of the thesis (PDF)

Writing a thesis represents the culmination of your graduate program. It should be a process that builds your confidence and sense of competence in the field of Landscape Architecture, particularly in developing your ability to connect theory to application and to reflect on those connections with insight. Your thesis should be something you are proud to publish, so that others can read it, and proud to leave on the desks of prospective employers as an example of your skills and interests.

The faculty of our Department is committed to helping each of you complete an excellent thesis. They will work hard with you to shape it, and to share what they’ve learned about how to ask questions well enough so that insightful answers can be found.

schedule | selecting a topic | type of thesis | working with a committee

Schedule

First Year
The first time you encounter thesis design issues will be in the Scholarship course, LA 570, which you will take in your 1st year. In that course, you will be introduced to the nature of scholarship in a design field, go over possible methods for research, and examine the logic that lies behind each approach. This course presents you with a chance to think freely about the kinds of topics and methods in which you are most interested. But by the summer after your 1st year, you should be thinking and talking with faculty and friends about possible topics!

Second Year
Many students have recently found a topic as a spin-off of one of the three graduate studios they take in the 2nd year. These studios often have projects that can turn into an excellent, well-supported thesis—perhaps even with funding. Don’t hesitate to ask faculty whether they think there is such a topic available in association with their studio project. In addition, it is a wise move to begin your thesis work by the spring of the 2nd year. This makes it more likely that you will finish early or on time, and also creates coursework and travel options for you in the spring of your third year. It is also often necessary to begin or accomplish all of your data collection in the summer between your 2nd and 3rd years, if you decide on a thesis topic and method that require some kind of data collection.

The department considers you to be officially working on your thesis when you have (1) selected an approximate topic, (2) arranged your committee, and (3) filed your 700 form (with a proposed outline and an abstract of your intended thesis questions and methods).

Third Year
This is the year to hit the ground running with your thesis work, hopefully finishing a complete draft of the manuscript by the end of winter term. The first tasks of this year, if you have not done them already, are to (1) select your approximate topic, (2) determine the type of thesis you would like to accomplish, (3) invite two LA Dept. Graduate School faculty members (regular or adjunct) to serve on your thesis committee (one as chair, the other as a committee member), and (4) file your 700 form to begin taking 700 credits with your committee members (you will not receive an entry code for these credits until you have filed your 700 form with its associated outline and abstract). You may also ask non-Graduate School faculty, non-LA faculty, and people outside UW to be on your committee as readers, but they will not be able to sign the thesis (this responsibility is reserved for members of the Grad School faculty; see the LA Department’s faculty list, regular and adjunct, if you aren’t sure who can advise a thesis project).

MLA Thesis Schedule

Selecting a topic

There are at least two ways to imagine what the right topic is for your thesis. The first is to ask yourself what kind of work you want to do after you graduate, and design a thesis that lets you showcase your skills in that specific area of work. The second, somewhat contradictory, method is to ask yourself what topic you are sufficiently interested in that you would work on it for 6-9 months for free (even if you were not in school). Both of those questions can help you figure out what’s interesting and important enough for you to commit to it as a thesis topic. And looking in the library to see what past MLA’s have done is always a good idea as well, especially recent theses – because these tend to better reflect the interests of the current faculty. That’s also a critical question for you to ask yourself—who is going to be on my committee, and what are those faculty interested in studying with me? If you identify a thesis topic that is closely related to the research interests of two faculty members, you’ll be much more likely to get to work with those two individuals! To learn more about faculty interests, take a look at the thesis topics a faculty member has advised in the past, look at his or her CV to find out what he or she writes about, or just stop by their office hours to find out what they’re most interested in learning about.

Type of thesis

The Department’s faculty members have discussed four different options for the thesis in the Master’s of Landscape Architecture Program:

1. The research thesis, which can be an exploration of theory, experimental work, or a study of correlations in data, whether your data are qualitative or quantitative;
2. The design thesis, which involves completing an actual design;
3. The design critique thesis, which involves developing a theoretical position from which to critique the work of other designers;
4. The professional project, which generally requires you to identify an actual client.

The Department faculty has discussed a general outline for each of these thesis types. See Appendix A of this memo for those outlines. You and your committee will develop a more detailed outline, and perhaps modify these suggested chapters and their order. In general, however, the inclusion of all of the suggested chapters represents a level of scholarly and professional rigor that we consider necessary to the completion of a Master’s thesis in Landscape Architecture.

The Department faculty has discussed a general outline for each of these thesis types. See Appendix A of this memo for those outlines. You and your committee will develop a more detailed outline, and perhaps modify these suggested chapters and their order. In general, however, the inclusion of all of the suggested chapters represents a level of scholarly and professional rigor that we consider necessary to the completion of a Master’s thesis in Landscape Architecture.

Working with a Committee

The Chair of your committee is the one who sets the standard for how the committee will operate (when and how often it will meet, etc.), and who negotiates with the other committee members on any disagreements about the scope or method of your thesis. You should negotiate these things with the Chair first, letting her or him know what you would like to do. But he or she has the final say. In the end, a thesis is like a letter to your committee. Their opinions matter the most of any you encounter. They must sign off on it, and no one else. They must find it sufficient, and are responsible for upholding the Department’s standards. They are also responsible for communicating clearly with you, and for sticking to their commitments with regard to scope and methods.

It is essential for you to manage your committee by always sending an email memo after meetings. This memo should summarize what you discussed and what you agreed upon, at each stage of the process. It is also essential that you seek a regular appointment time with your committee members; they will not be able to keep track of you, and will instead expect that you will come to them looking to meet when you need direction or have something to show them. In general, it’s a good practice to send weekly or bi-weekly memos to your committee members that give them an update on your work and your questions. This establishes that you’re working on a schedule, and allows them to review what you’ve done before they meet with you.

This document is meant to serve as a beginning guide, but in the process your committee will give you much more specific advice – especially the Chair of your committee! What’s most important is for you to find a topic that can interest you for several months of intensive work. The rest will become clearer once you get started. Good luck!

Appendix A – Thesis types: Outlines

Design Thesis

The outline for a Design Thesis in Landscape Architecture is as follows:

1. Introduction:
   Significance of the issues/questions/prototypes the student will explore
   (personal, theoretical and social).
   Introduce the case or cases that will be the focus of this thesis.
   Introduce the methods that will be used to establish a critical position and to determine the success of the design studies presented in the thesis.
2. Literature and Precedent reviews
   What has been written about this subject? Who else has tried to design something like this, and how did they do it? What related prototypes exist that could be useful to your design studies? What do you think has not been done by others, either in theoretical work or design work, that needs to be done in order for you to answer your questions/address the issues you feel are significant in your design?
3. Development of a Critical Position for Design
   How will you use your literature and precedents to define a "good" design outcome, in terms of the existing theories of aesthetics, landscape/site functions, and cultural/social meaning? Are there new theories or organizations of theories that you need to propose in order to pursue your questions?
4. Design Studies
   This section needs to represent your design work as clearly as possible.
5. Reflections and Conclusions regarding your design studies
   This section should "close the circle" of your thesis, by referring back to all 4 previous sections. This is where you honestly and explicitly compare your outcomes to your intentions, and compare your work to the work of others.
6. References

Design Critique Thesis

1. Introduction and Literature Review – what is the issue you will explore, and why is it important? Is it typical or unusual for this issue to arise in design practice?
2. Development of a Critical Position -- What are your priorities for the functional and aesthetic goals of these designs, and why do you believe these are important goals? Given these goals, what are the most important elements of the designs you reviewed (i.e., what explicit, generalizable framework(s) will you use to describe the designs you wish to critique)? In what ways could you say that they succeeded or failed (i.e., what generalizable framework(s) will you use to judge the success of a design or set of designs)?
3. Precedent Studies – Who else has explored this issue, or related issues, in design? What insights can you gain by applying your descriptive and evaluative frameworks to these precedents?
4. Design Critique – In the particular design situation you have selected as the focus of your thesis, what insights can you gain by applying your descriptive and evaluative framework(s)? Does the design(s) accomplish the functional and aesthetic goals you have identified as important?
5. Reflections on the Critique Framework(s) – Did you succeed in addressing the issues you raised, in whole or in part? How generalizable are your critical position and framework(s) (i.e., can it be used in many situations, or only a few)? Did the designer of the project you chose for your critique share your priorities? How can you reconcile the priorities of your critique with the goals of the designer and client?
6. References
   

Research Thesis (Theoretical, Experimental or Correlational)

1. Introduction and Literature Review – what is the issue you will explore, and why is it important? Is it typical or unusual for this issue to arise in design practice? What methods have been used to answer questions like yours in the past? How can you group these methods, in terms of their ontological assumptions about the subject area? Who else has written about this subject, and in what fields? What patterns can you detect in the way others have addressed this question, or similar questions? What approaches remain untried, or have not been confirmed by repeated studies in different contexts?
2. Methods and Study Area / Study Participants -- What ontological frame will you use to approach your topic, and why? What kind of data will you need, and why? Specifically, how will you collect your data (details of mapping techniques, or interview protocols, or field and lab work of other kinds)? How will you analyze your data, and why?
3. Results – What did your analyses show? (Typically, this section contains lots of figures and tables that summarize your results.) How do you judge the significance, accuracy, internal consistency, and repeatability of the methods that produced these results?
4. Discussion – Did your analyses of the data allow you to answer your questions? Were you surprised by any of the results? How do your results compare to the findings of others cited in your literature review? How did your actual use of the methods you selected contribute to answering your questions? Were there any results that lead you to believe that you and /or others have framed the questions inappropriately, and lead you to any insights about how this subject might be approached in the future?
5. Reflections on Your Approach and Implications for Design – Did you succeed in addressing the questions you raised, in whole or in part? How generalizable are your findings (i.e., do you think they can be expected to apply in many situations, or only a few)? How might a practicing designer find your results useful?
6. References -- A list of all references cited (and only those that were cited).
   

Professional Report Thesis

This type of thesis is the most flexible, and the brief outline below is intended as a starting point between you and your committee members. The goal of a professional report thesis is to simulate as closely as possible what the format and content of a professional consultant’s report would be on your topic. Your committee must decide what examples to use that will set the exact format and content guidelines.

1. Executive Summary

2. Background and Issues Studied

3. Method and Rationale for Method

4. Results of analysis or observations

5. Discussion and recommendations

6. References