Dear all,
A while ago, I collected about 70 PhD theses in the field of visual
communications (fairly loosely defined.) I found it useful to plot
these theses in two diagrams or maps:
Map one: a square with the following corners:
- investigating an historical topic,
- investigating an educational topic,
- investigating a practical topic (topic in design practice),
- investigating a research topic (topic in design research).
Map two: a triangle with the following corners:
- philosophical thesis: developing arguments
- empirical thesis: experiment based, developing interpretation of new data
- descriptive thesis: artefact based: developing new artefacts
Disserations that appear close together on both maps have several
things in common, but it became also clear that these can have very
different theoretical bases.
(An advantage of this kind of mapping is that the 'white areas'
become obvious ... If anyone is looking for a research topic in
visual communication?)
Kind regards,
Karel.
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