Centria Guide for Thesis and Academic Writing

The thesis demonstrates the student’s ability to understand, apply and produce professional results in his/her own field. At its best, the thesis serves as a bridge between student and working life.

This guide follows the general principles of thesis composition drawn up in national university of applied sciences working groups in 2005 and 2006. The guide is to be applied in all degree programmes in Centria University of Applied Sciences, but each field also has its own practices that will be explained in more detail in the thesis seminars.

In this updated guide the previous guidelines have been defined more closely. Examples have been added and the biggest changes to the previous guide concern structure models of different theses, assessment and using the Harvard style for referencing, which enables the use of the reference management software Mendeley. Also, the Centria Thesis Word template has been updated. Ethical guidelines have been added to this guide and should be taken into consideration when writing a thesis.

The next members of staff of Centria University of Applied Sciences have participated in compiling and writing this guide: Hanna-Riina Aho, Staffan Borg, Annukka Kukkola, Jennie Elfving, Annika Mylläri, Vesa Nuorva, Marko Ovaskainen, Timo Taari, Päivi Toikkanen and Tuija Tolonen-Kytölä. Karin Kallis was responsible for the English translation.

On behalf of the working group,

Jennie Elfving

- The Finnish Code of Conduct for Research Integrity and Procedures for Handling Alleged Violations of Research Integrity in Finland (RCR guidelines 2023)
- The ethical principles of research with human participants and ethical review in the human sciences in Finland (Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK guidelines 2019)
- Science and field specific ethical norms
- Open science and research (Open science)

- EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
- Data Protection Act (1050/2018)
- Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999)
- Medical Research Act (488/1999)

February-April 2024

• Editing the layout of the guide: removing the tabs of the main chapters and moving them directly under the main chapter in the left column
• Fixing minor typos and broken links
• Combining the subchapters on Thesis contract and Forms, added a table summary of the contracts and forms needed for the thesis
• Adding a new chapter: Artificial Intelligence
• Completing the Ethical Guidelines for Writing a Thesis chapter
• Adding a few new links and images
• Adding new files (thesis agreement with annexes, research agreement template and research information template)

September 2024

• Adding text about Joint Ethics Committee of Human Sciences to the subchapter Ethical review in the human sciences
• Combining the subchapters Ethical review in the human sciences and Ethical recommendations for thesis writing (> Ethics & thesis)
• Combining the subchapters Research consent, Research permits and Handling personal data  (> Handling personal data & processing )