Topic outline

  • Materials

    1. LITERATURE

    (PDF) Newport, C. (2007). How to become a straight-A student. Chapter about how to write college level 30-50 pages research paper. New York: Broadway Books.
    Even though this is not specifically about writing the thesis, the example of "Mindy's Art History Research Paper" fits very well with how to construct and write an excellent thesis.

    (PDF) Webster, J., & Watson, R. T. (2002). Analyzing the past to prepare for the future. Writing a literature review. MIS Quarterly, 26(2), xiii-xxiii.
    This is an informative and comforting article written by the editors of MIS Quarterly to help their contributors to write good quality literature reviews.

    Couple of  handbooks that are useful if writing does not come easily:
    Becker, H. S. (1986). Writing for social scientists. How to start and finish your thesis, book, or article. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 
    Graff, G., & Birkenstein, C. (2007). “They say/I say”. The moves that matter in persuasive writing. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 

    Lyhyt opas viittaamiseen (in Finnish) explains in an economic manner why, when and how to write correct references in an academic text.

    In English helpful is instructions to Harvard referencing since (Author, date) format is commonly used in the Department. Remember, though, that ARTS or Aalto does not have recommended referencing system so you can use whatever system you feel is most appropriate. Key principle is simple: your text must be as easy as possible to read and evaluate. Use your UCD-skills to achieve that. In general, academic readers tend to prefer seeing sources in the text while commercial writers typically have endnotes.

    2. SOFTWARE

    Professional writers tend to write either with basic text editor (such as TextEdit) or full blown manuscript composer (such as Scrivener or Ulysses), accompanied with a reference manager (such as Zotero or Bookends). Word processors (such as MS Word) are ok for those who do not plan to write long manuscripts after the thesis.

    3. HELPFUL LINKS

    Here's link to the MA graduation page. Page has links about maturity test, writing of abstract, submission and archiving of thesis etc and of course Master's Thesis Guide. And the same about BA graduation: Kandidaatintyön tekeminen (although we talk about opinnäyte), including Opinnäyteohje.


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