Six Steps to a Sucessful Report

Step 1. Write your learning objectives

The goal of co-operative education is to combine academic and practical learning. Setting objectives for your learning is an integral part of your co-op experience, and learning objectives are a required component of your work term report. You may set goals for learning about topics such as professional ethics or computer software. You may also set goals for developing work habits, employment skills or technical expertise.

During your work term visit, you will give your co-op co-ordinator a copy of your learning objectives, showing how you plan to meet each objective. In addition, please include your learning objectives in your work report, as an appendix. In the body of your work report, you will explain what you actually learned and chart your progress toward each objective.

Step 2. Choose a type of report

In a descriptive report, you describe every aspect of your work term experience thoroughly.
In a research report, you will describe a special project that you have conducted especially for the report. (You still need to cover the topics included in a descriptive report, but in much less detail.) Your supervisor may be willing to suggest some topics for your research or special project. Provide lots of detail about your methodology, results, observations and conclusions.

Please note: Reports on projects assigned by your employer may not form the basis of your research report. You may, however, attach such a report to your descriptive report, providing you have obtained permission from your supervisor.

Step 3. Plan Your Strategy

Start early, don’t wait until your deadline is looming! If you start collecting useful material from your first day on the job, you will have time to perform a thorough analysis and edit your work carefully. Here are some tips on getting started. Review several of the best work reports before leaving campus, so you know what is expected. 

• Consult the evaluation form, so you know what we expect. 
• Review the "Essential Features of Business Writing", a Writing Centre handout
• Inform your supervisor of your deadline during your first meeting. Ask how much time your supervisor will need to review your report, and negotiate an advance deadline, taking their vacation plans into consideration.
• Prepare an outline to ensure that you develop your ideas and arguments in a logical manner.
• Decide which printed materials, Web sites and staff resources you will consult.

Feeling Creative?

If you have an idea for presenting your work report in an innovative way, don’t let our guidelines inhibit your creativity. We’ve seen excellent reports presented as Web sites or short stories. As long as your report incorporates the required content and analysis, we welcome you to try a fresh approach. (You still need to provide a printed version.) Please discuss your idea with your supervisor and your co-op co-ordinator.

Step 4. Collect Content

From your first day on the job, you can start collecting documents for the work report. Journal notes, records of conversations, relevant articles and company literature may all be useful. Please be careful, however, not to incorporate confidential information into your final report.

• Keep a copy of your learning objectives for the appendix.
• Consult company brochures, manuals, Web sites and any other resources.
• Arrange interviews with staff members with knowledge of your topic.
• Prepare graphs, charts and diagrams.
• Keep accurate records of your sources so you can credit them in the bibliography and footnotes.
• Make notes of conversations, assignments, accomplishments and interesting facts.

Step 5. Establish an Outline

Please make sure your report contains all the sections listed in the format section.

Step 6. Check it over

Your work term report is an example of the quality of your work and should appear suitably professional for presentation to your organization’s chief executive officer.

Your report must be read by your supervisor and evaluated by your co-op co-ordinator. If you are in Arts Co-op or Science Co-op, your faculty co-ordinator will also read and evaluate your report. If you are in PEP, your report will be read, but not evaluated by, a faculty member. You may wish to review the evaluation form for your program. Your report must meet the standards set by the Co-op Office in these guidelines. If your work report is judged unsatisfactory, you will be required to submit a revised report within two weeks of your back-to-campus interview.