Publishing your doctoral thesis
Instructions for preparing your doctoral thesis for publication and printing, and information on archiving
The research plan is the basis for thesis work. Doctoral students follow the general quality requirements for doctoral theses at Aalto University and the possible School-specific guidelines.
Doctoral theses are published in the Aalto University publication series and are publicly available.
The topic of your doctoral thesis must be approved by the Doctoral Programme Committee of your School. The topic is approved when you are admitted to the programme (except at the School of Business where the topic is decided at a later stage).
The language of instruction of Aalto doctoral programmes is, in principle, English, but the doctoral thesis can also be written in Finnish or in Swedish (in the field of business, only in English or in Finnish). Normally, the language of your degree is the language in which you write your thesis (English, Finnish or Swedish).
If your topic changes, the change must be approved by the Doctoral Programme Committee. Always discuss the changes with your supervising professor first. If the research focus doesn't drastically change, you can modify the title of the thesis or the research plan without an official approval.
In case of a major change in your research topic, it is possible that your supervising professor and research field also changes.
Submit the application to your Doctoral programme's Doctoral Education Services (aalto.fi)
The form "Change of supervision professor, thesis advisor, research field or mode of study" is available at Doctoral student forms (aalto.fi).
You can write your thesis using the Word or LaTeX templates available at the page Publishing your doctoral thesis. You can also use your own style or adapt some previously used thesis layout.
Doctoral students at Aalto University publish their thesis through the Aalto Publication Platform. Doctoral students at Aalto ARTS may also apply to publish their thesis through Aalto ARTS Books. The Aalto University publication platform generates the standard front and back covers to the doctoral theses. The platform also generates the title pages and the abstract pages for the doctoral thesis.
EndNote is a tool for recording, saving and utilizing bibliographic citations otherwise known as references. It allows users to collect, write, import, organise, and format references. Users can also collaborate and share references with other users having access to the same reference management software. Aalto University has a full licence for reference management tool EndNote for our students, academic and other staff members.
Reference Management Software EndNote
If the thesis contains material that has already been published (such as pictures) the doctoral student should refer to it appropriately and obtain the required copyrights, when necessary.
Copyrights should also be obtained for the separate publications included in an article thesis. Publications in an electronic form should be equivalent in content with the printed publications.
Answers to copyright-related questions can be found in Copyright Guide and Copyright Guide: Use of Images.
See more at the section Research integrity: Responsible conduct of research
Patents nor standards may not be used as publications of an article-based thesis. Patents and standards are important results of research work, but their publication practices may be in conflict with the principles of scientific publication. Patents can be presented in the summary, and if necessary, be appended to the thesis.
Find resources to improve your skills related to data management, research ethics, IPR, dissemination of results and more!
The idea of scientific writing with references and source information is to show your own contribution (new research results) in relation to what was already known.
The requirement is that you write in your own words and give credit to the authors of the sources you have utilized. Besides being a skill, this requirement is also an ethical principle. Disregarding this principle means, for example, unacknowledged borrowing or plagiarism. Plagiarism is not accepted in doctoral theses. You should practice skilful writing and make sure beforehand that your text follows the good practices of academic writing.
Using Turnitin to identify unintentional plagiarism is highly recommended.
How to start using Turnitin?
The most fruitful way of taking advantage of Turnitin is to use it in co-operation with your supervising professor. Check if your supervising professor already has a dedicated workspace for thesis instruction in MyCourses. If your supervising professor doesn’t have a workspace, they can order a ready-made personal workspace for thesis supervision.
See detailed instructions from the links below. You will also find there the procedure followed when a student is suspected of plagiarism.
Aalto University's Turnitin instructions
Plagiarism and the responsibilities and rights of Turnitin users
The purpose of using Turnitin for draft versions of the thesis is to improve the doctoral student's scientific writing skills and to prevent unpleasant surprises due to, say, plagiarism later in the process.
The doctoral student submits a draft version of the thesis in a "Draft" activity in MyCourses. The supervising professor can utilize the Turnitin report for assessing the draft and also give feedback to the doctoral student using the Turnitin feedback tools (for details, see Thesis supervision workspace in MyCourses) or with some other preferred tool.
The doctoral student revises the draft with help of the Turnitin report and the feedback from the supervising professor. It is also possible to get a Turnitin similarity report for your draft on your own, see Turnitin instructions for independent usage.
The purpose of using Turnitin on the final version of the thesis manuscript to be sent for pre-examination is to check that the thesis sent to the pre-examiners doesn’t contain plagiarism.
The doctoral student submits the final version of the thesis for pre-examination in the pre-examination activity in MyCourses.
The supervising professor interprets the Turnitin similarity report at the same time as she/he assesses other aspects of the content.
The purpose of Turnitin usage for the final version of a thesis is twofold:
Doctoral dissertations at Aalto University, Decision of the Aalto University Academic Affairs Committee, 1 December 2015
Schools may approve doctoral thesis in the forms described below. Schools take the decision on the acceptable formats of thesis and give further guidelines on the requirements for doctoral thesis as needed.
An article-based doctoral thesis consists of a set of publications on a related set of problems, and a summary of the findings.
The articles included in the doctoral thesis are published or submitted for publication in an acknowledged peer-reviewed forum in the discipline (for example, a scientific publication series, conference proceedings or other work). Articles not yet accepted for publication can also be included in the doctoral thesis. The number of publications required for the thesis depends on their extent, scientific significance and quality as well as on the weight of the independent contribution of the doctoral student to the publications.
The articles may also include co-authored publications if the author's independent contribution to them can be demonstrated. An article can be included in several doctoral theses if the separate contribution of the doctoral student can be demonstrated.
The summary of the article-based doctoral thesis is an independent entity, which provides an overview of the thesis contents. The summary shall describe the research problem, research goals and methods, and presents a summary of the key findings. The summary shall assess the significance of the study for the discipline. The summary shall contain a list of the publications included in the thesis and describe the independent contribution of the student in each publication separately.
A monograph is a coherent writing based on the work of the doctoral student and written by the student. The monograph may contain references to previous works by the doctoral student on the same topic.
The doctoral thesis describes the research problem, the research goals, the used methods and results, and presents a summary of the key findings. The summary shall assess the significance of the study for the discipline.
An essay-based doctoral thesis consists of scientific essays and a summary. The essays and the summary shall deal with a single research problem or set of problems so that, when viewed as a whole, the independent contribution of the author meets the requirements set for a doctoral thesis.
Each of the essays shall contain new results and viewpoints, and shall primarily be based on independent research by the author, but also collaboratively written essays may be accepted as part of the doctoral thesis if the independent contribution of the author can be clearly demonstrated.
The number of essays required depends on their extent, scientific significance and quality as well as on the weight of the independent contribution of the author to the essays.
The summary describes the research problem, research goals and methods, and presents a summary of the key findings. The summary shall assess the significance of the study for the discipline. The summary contains a description of the independent contribution of the author in each of the essays.
At its discretion, the school may also approve as a doctoral thesis some other work meeting corresponding scientific criteria.
Doctoral dissertations at Aalto University, Decision of the Aalto University Academic Affairs Committee, 1 December 2015
In the field of art and design, a doctoral thesis may also include artistic components such as art productions, series of art productions meaningfully connected to each other, or product development projects. More information is available at the page artistic components (aalto.fi).
ARTS: Formats of doctoral theses (aalto.fi)
CHEM: Instructions for doctoral theses (aalto.fi)
ELEC: Forms of doctoral theses (aalto.fi)
Doctoral students at Aalto University publish their thesis through the Aalto Publication Platform. Doctoral theses are public documents by law and available at Aalto University's open access repository Aaltodoc.
Doctoral thesis: preparation for pre-examination and publication
Instructions for preparing your doctoral thesis for publication and printing, and information on archiving
Instructions for planning and arranging public defences (for doctoral student and custos)
A set of 500e and 2000e incentive scholarships are awarded by application for doctoral students who meet the conditions given.
Top ten percent of doctoral theses are awarded annually at Aalto University
Doctoral theses at Aalto University are available in the open access repository maintained by Aalto, Aaltodoc.
Index of all aalto.fi pages about doctoral education