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108 MATURITY ESSAY

School

Degree programme

PERSONAL DETAILS
Name

Student number

Street address

Telephone number

Postal code and city

E-mail address

Language of education

Finnish

Swedish

THESIS DETAILS (Filled in by thesis advisor or supervisor)

Name of bachelors thesis advisor
Bachelors thesis
Masters thesis
Language of thesis

Name and professorship code (e.g. S-113) of masters thesis supervisor

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 bachelors thesis advisor or masters thesis supervisor)
Pass
Fail
Date

Signature and printed name

CIRCULATION
1) Thesis advisor or supervisor

2) Return address:

Other

INSTRUCTIONS FOR WRITING A MATURITY ESSAY

The current degree regulations require students to write a maturity essay for both the bachelors and the masters degree. If the
requisite language proficiency has been demonstrated in a maturity essay written for a bachelors 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 masters 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.