Data Communications Software major

Tips for master's thesis workers

The main aim of these instructions is to help students to write their master's thesis in Data Communications Software major (in Computer science) at TKK, but these instructions can be applied to other type of writing works. Note: some links work only from the TKK domain!

Some courses (mostly in Finnish) for helping thesis writers:

Eri-0.6100 Tools for master's thesis worker by TKK's library
T-121.5950 Thesis seminar
Kie-98.1500 Thesis writing by TKK's language centre

Content

Process from bureaucracy poin of view
General working habits
Finding References
Templates and tools
Writing in English
Other tips and instructions

Process from bureaucracy poin of view

Instructions of how the master's thesis process works from bureaucratic point of view are given on the Degree Programme's page (the same instructions are also available in Finnish). Check the Degree Programme's instruction first, below are some instructions from more practical point of view.

Discuss in your working place about a thesis topic. Often a suitable topic can be found. Companies and TKK's departments also publish job advertisement for master's thesis positions. TKK's Career Services have more information about finding jobs (Data Communications Software's open thesis positions). The instructor of the thesis usually comes from the working place. The instructor must have a higher university degree (M.Sc. (Tech) is probably the best). Try to find an instructor who is really interested in the topic and who have time to help you. If you do not have job, the professors may have some topics for thesis but this is always the last possibility since the professor is also the instructor, and he/she is usually too busy to give feedback every week.
Check some old thesis: how they look, what kind of stucture they have.
When you have a topic and an instructor, discuss with the instructor and write one or two pages introduction and half to one page problem statement about the topic. Write outline for your thesis, include also subsections so it is evident what you are including to your thesis. Take the paper with you when you come to visit the professor (supervisor) for the first time. Take also the thesis topic application form with you (forms in English and in Finnish).
When you know your topic, professor (supervisor), and instructor, and the supervisor have supported your application, you can apply for the thesis topic from the department council.
You will have one year after the council meeting to write your thesis.
During the work, discuss your work with your instructor (and supervisor) regularly. For example, weekly meeting with the instructors are good way to work. In addition, give versions of your writings to your instructor even when you do not feel that the work is not finished. Then the instructor can intervene in early phase and problems can be solved before they become big problems.
When you have finished your work, give your manuscript to the instructor and supervisor for their final evaluation
Agree with the supervisor for the presentation time, and give the master thesis presentation. The presentation is 20 minutes long, and you should explain the main findings of your work. The supervisor signs a form that you have given the presentation (forms in English and in Finnish).
Write maturity test (if you are studying with 1995's degree regulations). In the maturity test, you should write four pages about your thesis (answering to a question given by the supervisor) in your own language (if it is Finnish or Swedish, othervise in English). It is an exam, done during some course exam in the exam period or separately in a supervised room (practical arrangements are agreed on with the department's secretaries) ((forms in English and in Finnish).
Ask permission for publishing your thesis in black covers from the professor. Do not do this without clear permission! Degree programme's page lists the places which makes the covers.
In the study office of the degree programme, make an application for the grading of your thesis (one black thesis book required for Department's library). The department council will grade your work. (The application forms (forms in English and in Finnish). Usually, it is polite to give one black thesis book also to the supervising professor and another to your instructor as in return for their work.
If your course credits are organized and all courses done, you can apply for graduating. (forms in English and in Finnish).

General Working Habits

Write using your own words.

Do not copy-paste even in the early phase of your work, at least not without marking the text clearly with quotation marks and source. (Example: "The Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol (ISAKMP) defines the procedures for authenticating a communicating peer, creation and management of Security Associations, key generation techniques, and threat mitigation (e.g. denial of service and replay attacks)." [RFC2408])
Writing with your own words clearly shows that you do understand what you have written: first read, then put the source aside, then write using your own words without looking at the source. (Example: ISAKMP provides peer authentication and key creation for secure connections [RFC2408].)

Start building the reference list from the beginning of your work. (More about seeking information).
- A good tool for handling references is bibtex. (X)emacs will create a bibtex file, when you name a file ending with .bib, eg. my_references.bib
- Write down all possible information about the source, but at least author, title, how the source is published, who has published it, the date, and the URL if known (note: URL is never enough!).
- Make an annotated bibliography:
  - Write down at least your own keywords for every found resource.
  - In addition to above mentioned information about the source, make a short summary of the source for yourself. It is easier for you later to find a specific source you know you have read, and then check what a specific issue was about without having to read the whole source again.
  - If you have a gap in your work, finding the essential references is much easier, if you have written your own keywords in the reference list.
  - Instructions for analytical reading
Mark the used source immediately when writing a text based on the source.
- You can check the references later much easier.
- You won't copy by accident.
- Use only one source / matter. Exception: when listing e.g. implementations of service discovery, you can mark serveral souces.
- Mark your sources where you used them, not always in the end of a paragraph.

Finding References and Evaluating Them

Do not forget libraries! Only a part of information is available on the Internet. Check separate instructions for seeking information and organizing knowledge (using TKK's library services).
- e.g. standards are often chargeable and libraries buy them.
- TKK's Library
- Computer Science Library
- Electronic collections of TKK's Library
Use other Internet search engines than the currently best, general search engine! Several search engines exist for scientific papers:
- IEEE Xplore consists IEEE's journals, conference proceedings and magazines.
- ACM Digital Library - the guide to computing literature has ACM's publications.
- CiteSeer is a Scientific Literature Digital Library that also lists how scientific papers refer to each others.
- Google Scholar is a nice search engine for scientific information (bibtex entries available).
Searching for Scientific Information course at TKK's library
- Good course about using sources of information at TKK
Note: It is seldom justifiable to use slides as refered source.
- You can use slides when trying to understand something, but not as a source if something more reliable is available.
- Avoid marketing material, it seldom really tells what is going on. Corporate whitepapers are considered marketing.

Templates and tools

If a template is given for your work, use it from the beginning of the writing!
- You see possible problems early enough.
- You see how long you still need to write/how much you still have room for your text

Latex and Bibtex
- Aalto-LaTeX wikipage contains the official logo package for LaTeX. Please use it if you want Aalto logo in your thesis (the templates below are not yet updated)
- Graduation from Aalto University from beginning of 2010 thesis template version 0.9 (with ugly pictures): tex and pdf - note: take the other files from the tar.gz file below! (28.12.2009)
- GRADUATION BEFORE END 2009 WITH OLD TKK TEMPLATE (Finnish LaTeX-template) Kandityöpohjaa (tar.gz) voi käyttää suomenkielisen dippatyön pohjana (lopputulos pdf:nä). Sanastovinkkejä kandivinkkisivun puolella.
- GRADUATION BEFORE END 2009 WITH OLD TKK TEMPLATE Master's Thesis template (tar.gz) for latex (result of the template in pdf) (sorry, there was an old tar but now there should be the right one)
  - For Mobile Computing Master's Students: Note: Your degree programme is Degree programme of Computer Science and Engineering, NOT Mobile computing (there exists no such degree programme), use the template above.
  - Note: Template for NordSecMob Master Students with two supervisors: Master's Thesis template for NordSecMob (tar.gz) for latex (result of the template in pdf)
- Annotated bibliography example
  - Write as much information as you have about the reference
  - Do not use commas to separate authors but use the word "and"
  - Write { } around acronyms and letters that you want to capitalized (but not for styling e.g. title!).
  - Field "note" will be shown in the reference list but field "annote" will not be shown.
  - If no other instructions given (in a seminar or by the professor), set bibtex to organize your reference list in alphabetical order based on the first author. Use numbers in the text to mark the used reference.
- Pictures in latex: programs
  - xfig program (available in Niksula); use fig2dev command for making the figure be eps (e.g. fig2dev -L ps picture.fig picture.eps)
  - dia program
- A protocol message table as a picture
  - example (pdf) stating the picture be "kuva1" because the document language is Finnish,
  - how it is done (tex) and
  - the template for messages
- Books:
  - Michel Goossens, Frank Mittelbach, and Alexander Samarin: The LaTeX Companion, Addison-Wesley, 1994
  - Leslie Lamport: LaTeX, A document preparation system, User's guide and reference manual, Addison-Wesley, 1997

Before giving your work for the instructor or supervisor to read, please use some spelling checker
- ispell works in (x)emacs, just type "M-x ispell-buffer", or copy-paste your work to e.g. MS Word.

Writing in English

Usually, Master's Theses are written in English. In addition to English language, you need to use the style of English writing. This means, that you give more hints what the reader will read next than writing in Finnish. This is done with transition in every layer. Use transition words such as however, on the other hand etc. to link sentences, link paragraphs together, and finally, the whole paper is linked together. Do not use same transition words too often but choose synonyms.

Use simple sentences and words.
- Do not write too long sentences, they will easily make the text unreadable.
- Think what is the correlate of a pronoun. Repetition is not a bad thing.
- Learn how to use comma and other punctuation. (OWL's Instructions for grammar and punctuation)
- Pictures and tables need to be explained in the text. Do not assume that the reader will see your point from the picture without help.
- When an acronym is used for the first time, write it out and put the acronym in parentheses. For example, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is a reliable connection oridented transport layer protocol and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is corresponding unreliable connectionless protocol. Many applications use TCP instead of UDP. It is nice to repeat the whole name of a protocol once in a while.
Remember to mark the references in the text!
- Some instructions used in T-110 courses about referring (in Finnish and less in English)
Grammar
- OWL Online Writing Lab at Purdue University is good grammar with examples and exercises.
Dictionaries
- NetMOT dictionary Finnish - English (and other languages)
- Merriam-Webster English-English dictionary
- English courses at HUT
Books about writing
- William Strunk, Jr.: The Elements of Style. 1999.
- V. Booth, Communicating in Science: Writing and Speaking. Cambridge University Pres, 1984.
- M. Davis, Scientific Papers and Presentations. Academic Press, New York, NY, 1997.
- R. A. Day, How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, 5th Ed. Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Other tips

Do not worry about the end of the work in the begining!

Writing is a personal thing
- Using a template help avoiding "white paper syndrome"
- If you got stuck, write some other part of the work or draw a picture and explain it.
- You do not need to write final text from the start, you can rewrite. Write with any language or even mix languages, just get something written.
- You can start from the middle, not from the beginning, it is usually easier.
- Try to to divide your work to smaller pieces.
Plan the timetable well
- Make a writing plan: your outline with how many pages each chapter will contain and when your write that chapter.
- Take into account other things that affect your writing, e.g. courses and their deadlines, your instructor's and supervisor's holidays etc.
- Example about timetable: If you want to graduate before end of the year (assuming that all courses have been done), your master thesis typically is accepted in the last departement council meeting somewhere in the beginning of December. The deadline for the subjects of the meeting is about ten days earlier than the meeting. Before that, your supervising professor need to read the work through. Before the professor, your instructor needs to read the work throug. Thus, your work need to be finished about in the middle of November, latest.

Other instructions

Prof. Hannu Kari's instructions about On the Structure of a Master's Thesis

Wiki for Data Communication major DI2010 students (in Finnish)

Sanna Suoranta, 2.9.2009