Instructions for writers

Talk by Students – highlighting competence

What is Talk by Students?

Talk by Students is an online magazine where our students and their supervisors write about the topics of their theses or projects for professional communities in their field. Articles may also include other content, such as videos and podcasts.

The maturity tests are written as articles and saved to the Talk by Students platform. Some of the maturity tests are published on a discretionary basis, in which case the supervising teacher participates in the finalisation of the article.

For students, the publication platform brings experiences of online publishing and visibility to their own work. The published articles also give Turku UAS more visibility.

Instructions for authors

Talk by Students online publication is aimed at the professionals working in the fields that are taught at Turku University of Applied Sciences.

  • Write clear, generally understandable language. Do not try to produce fancy text – instead, aim to be illustrative and interesting.
  • If you use professional terms, explain the terms used.
  • Make sure that your text does not include any matters of business secrecy.
  • Write about the outcomes of your thesis, instead of describing how you have processed the thesis.
  • The scope of the article has not been specified separately, but as a rule, an article is a few pages (approximately 4,000 characters) long.

A clear structure helps the reader

In the Talk by Students online magazine, the structure of the article differs from the structure of a report-like publication, thesis, essay or summary. It is not a goal of an article to report chronologically the process of the thesis. An article can be analytic, reflective, argumentative and/or informative.

In Talk by Students platform, the article consists of the following elements:

  • Title
    The title can be fairly long if necessary. A captive title has a narrative and conversational tone – it can contain several statements or questions.
  • Short head-note
    The head-note serves as a bridge between the title and the text. Write the head-note with bold print.
  • Starting paragraph
    Give the reader background information on the topic. A starting paragraph can answer questions about what, why, when, how, and where. For example, a starting paragraph can include an example, a description, a quote, a rhetorical question, a definition, an argument, or an antithesis.
  • Short body text paragraphs
    Write just one idea per paragraph.
  • Subheadings or interesting snippets
    Subheadings and snippets arouse interest at appropriate intervals. NOTE: There is no subheading at the beginning of the text, between the head-note and the starting paragraph. Think of a couple of suggestions for text snippets – these will stimulate the interest of a reader who is browsing. Maximum number of characters for one snippet is 300 including spaces.
  • Use bullet point lists
    When listing items, it is recommended to create a concrete bullet point list when listing three or more items.
  • Active instead of passive
    Prioritise active instead of passive form: ‘Service design is used to make the voice of both service users and service providers heard.’ -> ‘Service design makes…’
  • Link to Theseus
    If your thesis has already been published in Theseus, add the link to your thesis to the end of the article.
  • Photo credits
    Enter further details about the images in a text box at the end.

Illustration is an integral part of publication

What would an article be without a picture? Add at least a main image to your text – NOTE: the size should be minimum 720×480 px, otherwise the picture can not be used.

Genuine snapshots can be used in between the text, and you can also embed a video clip. Remember to consider the user rights to the images.

It is possible to add other images to your text, too. You can look for examples of articles that have already been published. You can take pictures yourself or take advantage of free image banks (e.g. Unsplash, Pexels, Freepik, Pixabay). The built-in image banks in Microsoft Office are also available. Remember to mention the source of the images at the end of the text. Make sure you only use images that you are allowed to use.

Tagging sources

The bibliography is added at the end of the text. Only mention the sources you have referred to in the article. At the end of the article, a link to the thesis on which the article is based is added. The thesis is stored in Theseus.

A bibliography includes the author, the year of publication, the name of the publication and/or the name of the article, the publisher and publisher’s domicile (and, in the endnotes, the page number). References are indicated in the text as follows: (Aaltonen 2008, page number).
For online sources, the bibliography contains the name of the material (in the case of materials comparable to printed sources, the aforementioned information), the website address and the date on which the source was used. The text uses activated links to referenced web pages.

Talk by Students article reference: Last name, x. & Last name 2, x. 202x. Title of the article. Talk by Students. Turku: Turku University of Applied Sciences. Accessed x.x.202x xxx

Some examples to check out

Once you have written your maturity test article according to the instructions, proceed to feed the text into the Talk by Students platform according to these Student’s Instructions (the link leads to the instructions found in Messi’s Thesis page).

Who can provide support for the writing process?

If you have any questions about producing the text, please feel free to contact your supervising teacher or the editorial board of the Talk by Students publication:

Engineering and Business
Katja Meltola, Communications Specialist
katja.meltola@turkuamk.fi


Health and Well-being
Aleksi Rajamäki, Communications Advisor
aleksi.rajamaki@turkuamk.fi

Chief Editor of Talk by Students
Satu Haapala, Senior Communications Advisor
satu.haapala@turkuamk.fi
tel. +358 50 5985 634