Guidelines for Writing an Internship Report
The internship is an integral part of the bachelors academic program. This work term should provide you with valuable insights into the professional and real practical side of of the theories learned at the university in practice. To fulfill the academic requirements of the internship you are required to submit an internship report following the specifications outlined in this guide.
Interns are required to submit a written account of their Internship. To
receive academic credit or complete a non-credit Internship, the
student must submit a full report of the experience 20 calendar days
into the following term of enrollment after the Internship. Revisions
are accepted following the first submission, but an approved report must
be on file by the end of the term following the Internship.
Success at the workplace demands effective communication skills. Most work place communication is written. To grab attention it must concisely articulate a clear, interesting message. An involving topic, an organized text, and a readable style increase the likelihood of your work being noticed and taken seriously. Often, written work such as reports, assessments and memos are the first and only impression upper management receives of you. Your writing becomes your sole representative and reflects the quality, accuracy and professionalism of your daily work activities.
Because completing the Internship requirement rests upon the content
of the Internship report, students should stress what they learned
through the experience that they had not known before. The report should
be written objectively with specific examples of new concepts or ideas.
It should not be a personal account of your time or how you felt about
the job. The report should offer observations on how the real world
works. Meeting the Internship requirement is based on the report and how
the experience broadens the student's perspective beyond the actual
work performance. The report should demonstrate to the reader that
something new and interesting was learned through specific examples. The
student should expect requests for revisions from the committee.
Examples of actual Internship reports are available in the Internship
Office.
A report on a ten-week experience that consists of less than five
typed pages may be superficial, but one very much longer than that may
need tightening up. The report becomes part of your permanent file in
the Registrar's office so attention must be paid to organization,
grammar, spelling, and typing. Students are required to have a signature
from the Writing Center verifying that the report has been reviewed and
edited prior to its submission to the Internship Director.
The Required Components and Purpose of an Internship Report
Your internship report has to contain three subject areas:
1. Outline of the background and specific business of the company and/or department in which you performed your internship;
2. Outline of the work that you have performed in the company;
3. A discussion of a specific skills, knowledge and challenges related to your internship.
4. Report Format
The following format guideline outlines the specific requirements of the internship report in terms of the overall structure and necessary sections which are appropriate in most circumstances. There is no strict rule on the length and specific formatting of text. You should be able to format your report in the style most appropriate for your studies. However, a typical internship reports consist of three main sections: the preliminaries, the main text and the reference material, all of which are outlined on the following pages.
4.1 Preliminaries
The preliminaries have to include
1. Title Page
2. Acknowledgement and Endorsement
3. Executive Summary
4. Table of Contents
The Title Page introduces your reader to your report by listing the following information: report title; employer's name and location; date of report; your name, student number, email address, and internship course number and year; the university name; and the ``partial fulfillment'' phrase.
The Acknowledgement and Endorsement on the second page should contain any
acknowledgement of assistance and a statement of endorsement, which states that you wrote the report yourself and that it has not already received academic credit from another institution.
The Executive Summary is the most important part of your report. It summarizes the body of the report, outlining its scope, purpose and major findings, highlighting the key conclusions and recommendations. The Executive Summary allows a busy manager to understand the report's significant information without reading the whole text.
Write your Executive Summary after you have written the report. It is not enough to state what you are `going to discuss’ in the report. The executive summary has to be self-contained and must state all the major points of the study. You are not required to discuss in detail how you derived the conclusions or argue about it; this is part of the main body of the text. However, you have to indicate enough details about your study so that a specialist reader has a good understanding of your contributions detailed in the report.
The Table of Contents lists all sections and sub-sections and uses the same numbering system as the main body of the report. The preliminaries are not listed. Remember -- ease of use is paramount.
4.2 Main Text
The main text has to include
1. Introduction
2. Body
3. Discussion, Conclusions and Recommendations
The Introduction defines the subject of the report so that the reader is prepared for the text that follows. Here you can outline the company and/or department for which you worked, and you can summarize the work you performed at the company. Setting the background is important because the faculty member evaluating the report may not be familiar with the detailed operations of your employer. Of course, there is no need to give a highly detailed account. The information on the site layout and number of employees would only be given if it relates to later parts of the report.
The second part of the background should outline the history or objectives leading up to the project or study detailed in the report. The purpose of this part is to argue why the specific project or the study outlined in the report is of interest. From this second part of the background, the reader can now anticipate the objectives of the study. The objective or goal of the study outlined in the report should be crisply stated and conceptually separated from the background and the method used.
An introduction answers the question, ``Why was the specific work or study done?''. Keep your introduction brief, but remember to outline the background and scope of the report and give a clear statement of objectives of the study. Ask a question that you will try to answer in this study. After reading the introduction, your reader should be prepared for the report that follows, and remember that a reader will be looking for sections dealing with the issues addressed in the introduction.
The Body is the longest part of your report. It is here that you develop your theme by examining the problem, your findings and their meaning. This body of the report should be formatted appropriately with sections and headings to guide the reader through the report.
Although every report will have different section headings, there are certain themes which run through all reports - a description of the methods used to acquire data, a summary of the data obtained and finally a discussion of the interpretation of the data. In this context the word ``data" can have such different meanings as actual scientific measurements, textbook information, manufacturer's literature, plant logbooks, financial statements, opinions of experts or employees and so on.
NB. Conclusions and recommendations are often confused but they are not the same thing.
Conclusions are derived from research outlined in the main body and do not introduce new
material. They may be presented in a sequence of two or three sentence paragraphs. The conclusions should specifically answer the questions raised in the introduction or conclude how the goals or objectives stated in the introduction have been met.
Recommendations are proposed plans of action for the future. They are suggestions following logically from the conclusions. Remember that conclusions deal with the present, recommendations with the future. Each should be presented on a separate page.
The Required Components and Purpose of an Internship Report
Your internship report has to contain three subject areas:
1. Outline of the background and specific business of the company and/or department in which you performed your internship;
2. Outline of the work that you have performed in the company;
3. A discussion of a specific skills, knowledge and challenges related to your internship.
4. Report Format
The following format guideline outlines the specific requirements of the internship report in terms of the overall structure and necessary sections which are appropriate in most circumstances. There is no strict rule on the length and specific formatting of text. You should be able to format your report in the style most appropriate for your studies. However, a typical internship reports consist of three main sections: the preliminaries, the main text and the reference material, all of which are outlined on the following pages.
4.1 Preliminaries
The preliminaries have to include
1. Title Page
2. Acknowledgement and Endorsement
3. Executive Summary
4. Table of Contents
The Title Page introduces your reader to your report by listing the following information: report title; employer's name and location; date of report; your name, student number, email address, and internship course number and year; the university name; and the ``partial fulfillment'' phrase.
The Acknowledgement and Endorsement on the second page should contain any
acknowledgement of assistance and a statement of endorsement, which states that you wrote the report yourself and that it has not already received academic credit from another institution.
The Executive Summary is the most important part of your report. It summarizes the body of the report, outlining its scope, purpose and major findings, highlighting the key conclusions and recommendations. The Executive Summary allows a busy manager to understand the report's significant information without reading the whole text.
Write your Executive Summary after you have written the report. It is not enough to state what you are `going to discuss’ in the report. The executive summary has to be self-contained and must state all the major points of the study. You are not required to discuss in detail how you derived the conclusions or argue about it; this is part of the main body of the text. However, you have to indicate enough details about your study so that a specialist reader has a good understanding of your contributions detailed in the report.
The Table of Contents lists all sections and sub-sections and uses the same numbering system as the main body of the report. The preliminaries are not listed. Remember -- ease of use is paramount.
4.2 Main Text
The main text has to include
1. Introduction
2. Body
3. Discussion, Conclusions and Recommendations
The Introduction defines the subject of the report so that the reader is prepared for the text that follows. Here you can outline the company and/or department for which you worked, and you can summarize the work you performed at the company. Setting the background is important because the faculty member evaluating the report may not be familiar with the detailed operations of your employer. Of course, there is no need to give a highly detailed account. The information on the site layout and number of employees would only be given if it relates to later parts of the report.
The second part of the background should outline the history or objectives leading up to the project or study detailed in the report. The purpose of this part is to argue why the specific project or the study outlined in the report is of interest. From this second part of the background, the reader can now anticipate the objectives of the study. The objective or goal of the study outlined in the report should be crisply stated and conceptually separated from the background and the method used.
An introduction answers the question, ``Why was the specific work or study done?''. Keep your introduction brief, but remember to outline the background and scope of the report and give a clear statement of objectives of the study. Ask a question that you will try to answer in this study. After reading the introduction, your reader should be prepared for the report that follows, and remember that a reader will be looking for sections dealing with the issues addressed in the introduction.
The Body is the longest part of your report. It is here that you develop your theme by examining the problem, your findings and their meaning. This body of the report should be formatted appropriately with sections and headings to guide the reader through the report.
Although every report will have different section headings, there are certain themes which run through all reports - a description of the methods used to acquire data, a summary of the data obtained and finally a discussion of the interpretation of the data. In this context the word ``data" can have such different meanings as actual scientific measurements, textbook information, manufacturer's literature, plant logbooks, financial statements, opinions of experts or employees and so on.
NB. Conclusions and recommendations are often confused but they are not the same thing.
Conclusions are derived from research outlined in the main body and do not introduce new
material. They may be presented in a sequence of two or three sentence paragraphs. The conclusions should specifically answer the questions raised in the introduction or conclude how the goals or objectives stated in the introduction have been met.
Recommendations are proposed plans of action for the future. They are suggestions following logically from the conclusions. Remember that conclusions deal with the present, recommendations with the future. Each should be presented on a separate page.
No comments:
Post a Comment