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  • ADDITIONAL GUIDELINES


    These guidelines contain informal practical advices how theses are typically progressing. These guidelines are not legally binding text, but a written collection of things typically discussed during the thesis. This guideline is adopted from the instructions used by other research groups of the Department of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering.

    STARTING OF MASTER'S THESIS

    Look first official instructions, and evaluation criteria from aalto.fi. The first thing is to agree a starting meeting. It should be as early as possible during the thesis, and it can be held even before the starting date. 

    It is best if the student proposes a tentative table of contents at least for the literature part already during the starting meeting. In addition, project background and tentative scope (about 0.5-1 A4 page) can be presented at the same meeting.

    STARTING MEETING

    Things to be agreed in the first meeting: Thesis preliminary title (can be modified later if needed), who will be advisors (1 or 2, need to be at least MSc or equivalent, other people can participate unofficially), language of the thesis, and starting and ending dates. Recommendation is that MSc thesis should be done 800 h within 5 months, but this can be agreed with the employer. If the student can work for the thesis only part-time, that can be agreed as well but it is not recommended. The student should keep memo of the starting meeting (a short one is sufficient), where the agreed items are mentioned. Send the memo and other materials via email to instructors and supervisor after the meeting.

    TOPIC APPLICATION OF MASTER'S THESIS

    After the starting meeting, request to the topic to be accepted by the degree program committee. Beside the preliminary title of master's thesis, the topic application contains also the information about supervisor, advisors and language. 

    'MASTER'S THESES ARE PUBLIC'

    MSc thesis is public by law (the evaluated version). Sometimes companies request an additional confidential version as well. If such a version is written, it is not evaluated. In practice, it is best if the differences are minimal between public and any additional version. In the public version, some details can be hided, for example some chemicals can be called A, B, C; process total capacities, locations etc. can be left out if they are not essential for the analysis. In some cases, figures can be drawn without axes, or values can be scaled to be dimensionless. A MSc thesis work does not have to be reported in a similar detail as a scientific publication which should be reproducible with the information given in the publication. The most important thing in the thesis is that it shows student’s capability to analyze the problem. The student can have non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with the employer, and if the work is done as normal employee, that comes typically with the work contract. From the thesis point of view, confidential material is background information.

    ENGLISH WRITING

    You can inquiry consultation in English writing from Aalto Writing Clinic:


    LITERATURE REVIEW

    For literature part you can find useful information and links on chemical engineering in English at https://libguides.aalto.fi/en and in Finnish at https://libguides.aalto.fi/kemia. Typically literature part should be written within approximately the first month. However, if the employer wishes to have different schedule, that can be agreed. It is best if the student can propose a deadline for him/herself, when the literature part is submitted to the instructors. It is best if the instructors first comment the text, then the student makes corrections accordingly, and then submits the text to the supervising professor for commenting. After these comments, a second meeting can be held where comments are discussed together and the experimental/applied part work plan is discussed. Typically, this is around 6-8 weeks after starting the thesis, so that 2-3 weeks of experimental or applied work has been done. At that stage, the student has familiarized with the tools, but the work direction can still be planned further.

    For the referencing style, general rules are that you should follow one standard referencing style, make sure that the original reference can be found, and that it is clear which parts of the text are really your own and which from the literature. The student is advised to use Turnitin to check that the referencing is proper (no accidental plagiarism). You can check with Turnitin any draft versions and finally completed version of your master’s thesis in MyCources at ‘Thesis supervision Marjatta Louhi-Kultanen 2021-23’, where I shall enroll you as a participant.

    Typically literature part is around 30-40 pages, but there is no strict limitations. Use figures, tables etc. to make reading easy. Keep the balance so that you do not write long text about some details just because you have found good references for that. Literature part should give general view about the topic, and it can contain more details if you expect that you will refer to them in the experimental/applied part later. Justify lines, remember page numbers, list of symbols and abbreviations if needed. In the introduction section describe the aims, hypotheses and research motivation properly. The conclusion part ought to summarize whether the final outcomes met the initial aims and expectations and if not, describe possible reasons. If you have plenty of results in figures, tables, etc. present the most relevant ones in the main text and rest of the results in appendix. Insert cover page and the first official pages at an early stage, this makes the whole thesis look like it is going to be completed!

    Depending on the employer wishes, the student and advisors should have regular meetings, where the work is discussed and writing progress followed. It is beneficial to write the thesis continuously throughout the thesis period. Meetings with the supervising professor can be arranged whenever needed. In some cases there is only one final meeting after the starting meeting and the one where literature part is discussed, and in other cases a couple of additional intermediate meetings during the experimental/applied part.

    When the whole thesis text is ready, the student should submit it first to the advisors again for commenting. At this stage, advisors should also check that there is nothing confidential in the text. After corrections, send it to the supervising professor.

    When reviewing the thesis supervising professor prefers to read and comment thoroughly each part of the thesis only once: literature part in the beginning and experimental/applied part at the end. General discussion what to include or emphasize can be held whenever needed. The first commenting round (literature part) is still mainly to support writing process, so the student should take a look at the comments and try to improve general writing based on those (if needed), not only correct the proposed specific points. The second commenting round (experimental/applied part) is also a significant part of evaluation of the thesis. It is not needed a separate evaluation round after commenting the last parts. Supervising professor will not either double-check that the corrections have been done, except if there is something specific that calls for that. In those cases, the student can ask whether a specified part of the thesis is properly written after modifying the work according to the comments. Remember that the thesis author is the student only, and although instructors and supervising professor try to help as much as possible, we are not evaluating our own text or contribution, but the student’s text (capability to write and analyze).

    PUBLIC PRESENTATION AND ABSTRACT AS MATURITY TEST

    Before the thesis can be accepted, it must be presented publicly. If that is done at the company, there is no need to have another presentation at the university. If not, then the thesis can be presented e.g. in a group meeting. Approximately 10-15 min presentation is sufficient. Try to focus on general introduction of the work and conclusions, do not try to show all the data. To date, the abstract text stands for maturity essay.

    SUBMISSION AND EVALUATION OF MASTER'S THESIS

    Submit the thesis to the degree program committee as soon as everything is ready. For the scheduling, you can calculate backwards from the committee deadline: 1) thesis ready from your side, 2) send it to the instructors (agree on the schedule here!), 3) correct according to the advisors’ comments and send to the supervisor (agree on the schedule also here!), 4) make corrections and send it to the degree program committee before a suitable meeting DL. No additional evaluation round is needed here in this case. However, send the final pdf to me (does not come automatically from the system).

    Thesis evaluation is based on official grading available in the school web site in aalto.fi. In practice, I will ask comments from the advisors about how the work has been progressing, if extensive help has been needed (independence), and how much the work had to be corrected. Frequent discussions with the advisors or supervising professor do not lower the grade as such! If those discussions show that you have a vision about the topic and can do independent analysis and propose ideas, that can be considered as a significant skill. If instructions need to be repeated and the work “pushed” forward, that will lower the grade, as well as significant delays compared to the agreed schedule. I will combine instructors’ evaluations to my own impressions and sign the official evaluation proposal, so that the official grade proposal is given by me only. Evaluation is finally accepted by the degree program committee.

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