108 MATURITY ESSAY

School Degree programme

PERSONAL DETAILS Name Student number Language of education Finnish Swedish Other Street address Telephone number Postal code and city E-mail address

THESIS DETAILS (Filled in by thesis advisor or supervisor) Bachelor’s thesis Name of bachelor’s thesis advisor

Master’s thesis Name and professorship code (e.g. S-113) of master’s thesis supervisor

Language of thesis Finnish Swedish English

Topic of thesis (in language of thesis)

DETAILS OF MATURITY ESSAY (Filled in by thesis advisor or supervisor) Date Time Examination hall Topic(s) of maturity essay (students choose one):

SIGNATURE OF STUDENT Date Signature

APPROVAL Contents of maturity essay (Filled in by bachelor’s thesis advisor or master’s thesis supervisor) Pass Fail Date Signature and printed name

CIRCULATION 1) Thesis advisor or supervisor 2) Return address:

INSTRUCTIONS FOR WRITING A MATURITY ESSAY The current degree regulations require students to write a maturity essay for both the bachelor’s and the master’s degree. If the requisite language proficiency has been demonstrated in a maturity essay written for a bachelor’s degree earned at an Aalto University school of technology or at some other higher education institution in Finland, the language of the maturity essay written for the master’s degree is not checked. Since the language proficiency requirement applies only to students who have been educated in Finnish or Swedish, the language of maturity essays written in English is not checked. The maturity essay is an essay of approximately four pages. It is written in a supervised examination hall without any examination aids. Students choose one of the topics given by the supervising teacher or thesis advisor. The topic of the maturity essay is related to the topic of the thesis. The maturity essay demonstrates conversance with the thesis topic and excellent command of the language of education. The essay should demonstrate such scientific and professional maturity as is required in expert duties in a particular field of science. The essay should be written bearing in mind the following criteria: Textual requirements

- The text is written on the topic given and in accordance with the instructions. The headline is also included in the essay.

- The text is an essay, meaning a reflective piece of writing (not an exam answer). Its recommended length is approximately 450 characters. If the assignment defines the genre, communication purpose or audience in more detail, the text must follow the instructions.

- The text contains a sufficient amount of background information to be understood without reading the thesis itself. - The text is a well-structured (introduction, body, conclusion) and coherent whole (not a list). The text is cohesive. - The text has been divided into paragraphs that are clearly separated from each other. The division into paragraphs is

purposeful, and the text presents matters in a logical order. - The text contains no graphs or tables, only text. No subheadings or numbering is to be used. Bulleted lists do not

belong in a maturity essay. Stylistic and linguistic requirements

- The text is written in formal style, not for instance, in the form of a causerie. You should avoid colloquial language and officialese.

- If possible, choose a professional term in your mother tongue instead of a foreign loanword. The concepts and their relations are unequivocal.

- The relationships between sentences and clauses are expressed clearly; no serious reference errors are allowed. Sentences and clauses are unambiguous, coherent and diverse.

- The text complies with the norms of formal written language (e.g. compound nouns, agreement, use of non-finite clauses, word order). The text shall not have an alarming number of language errors.

- The student must master basic spelling and punctuation rules and use abbreviations sparingly. Attention is paid to suffixes combined with numbers and abbreviations.

- The handwriting is legible, and it is easy to distinguish between upper and lower case letters. Using block letters is not allowed.

The maturity essay may be failed if it does not meet the above requirements. Students who fail their maturity essay may retake it. Students who wish to have the special arrangements for students with dyslexia applied to them shall submit a statement regarding their dyslexia to the person in charge of the language check.

Return instructions to those handling maturity essays

If both the content and the language of the maturity essay need to be checked, the thesis may be copied and submitted to both the thesis advisor/supervisor and the Language Centre; in other cases the form is circulated as specified at the bottom of the form. The return address (name and P.O. Box) is always specified at the bottom of the form under ‘Circulation’. Depending on the practices of the unit, the return address includes the details of the thesis advisor or thesis supervisor, the office of the degree programme or another person defined by the unit.