Education Students

HANDBOOK

FOR

CO-OPERATIVE

EDUCATION STUDENTS

ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS

COMMUNICATION

English Written Report

[Some rules, hints and examples on writing your final report.]

Written by Ajarn John K. D’Amato

Revised by Ajarn Michael Martin

Dept. of Foreign Languages

SripatumUniversity

Symbols and Explanations

On the following pages, you will find some directions on how to write your final report. Some of what you will read are rules and marked with a

Rules =

Rules are to be followed. I have also included hints on what you should do or not do. These hints are marked with a

Hints =

Hints are just suggestions. You don’t have to do what is suggested. In some cases, I have tried to provide some examples. These are marked with an

Examples 

Examples are included to help you understand. They are not included for you to copy them word by word.

The Co-operative Education Report Committee, the Oral Exam Committee, and the Faculty of Liberal Arts have accepted this report as a partial fulfillment for a Bachelor of Arts in English Business Communication, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Sripatum University.

[This is the page after your cover page. Use 12-point Arial, boldface, for all of it. Be careful of spelling. There is a line for a signature, which is the same line on which you type the person’s title, e.g. Chair. Then the person’s name is typed underneath the signature line.]

Co- operative Education Report Committee:

______Chair

(A. Michael J.P. Martin)

______Advisor

[Internship advisor’s name]

Oral Exam Committee:

______Chair

(A. Juthamas Sukontha)

Dean, Faculty of Liberal Arts:

______

(Dr. Monticha Khruasuwan)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Here is where you can thank all of the people responsible for making your Co-operative Education internshipa happy and valuable experience. Normally, you thank the teacher who helped you put together the report, and any of the other people in the Department of Foreign Languages who were particularly helpful.

It’s also a chance to thank the people at the company you worked for. Usually you give the reason why you are thanking them. For example, “I would also like to thank Mr ______for all of the time he spent with me, helping me to improve my English speaking skills”, or “I would like to thank Ms ______for teaching me how to use MS Excel program on the computer.”

Just write your thanks in simple, easy-to-read sentences, and in your own words. Write it from your heart.

Note that the Acknowledgement section comes before the numbered pages. Usually you’ll put it before the Table of Contents, right after your page that has the signatures.

You have to have a contents page, separate from the Acknowledgement page and Introduction page that tells the reader what’s in your report. Contents page is 16-point Arial boldface; the rest is 12 point.

Your page numbers will be different from the example below. Maybe you’ve added sections, photos or something else. Put them in the right section and number them correctly.

Here's an example of a contents page, except you should try to put the contents title closer to the top of the page.

Table of Contents

Page

Acknowledgements i

1.Introduction

1.1Background 1

1.2Objectives of the Co-operative Education Program 2

1.3Personal Objectives 4

2.Methods and Self-Evaluation

2.1Procedures 5

2.2Self-Analysis 6

3.Duties and Responsibilities

3.1 Responsibilities 8

3.2 Weekly Reports 10

4.Problems and Solutions at Work

3.1 Problems 19

3.2 Solutions 20

5.Recommendations

5.1 Overall Evaluation 22

5.2 Advice for Next Year’s Co-operative Education Students 23

5.3 Recommendations for the Co-operative Education Program24

Appendices

Appendix A: Examples of Work

Appendix B: Company Profile

Appendix C: Other Supporting Data

[The plural of Appendix is Appendices. You don’t need page numbers for your Appendices.]

Report on the Co- operative Education at (Fill in the name of the company where you interned.)

1. Introduction

[centered, underlined, 16-point Arial boldface.]

1.1 Background [Flush left. 12 point, boldface. Use the same numbering system as you did in your Contents Page. This is your first numbered page.]

[Background is usually short. Pretend that readers have not looked at your Table of Contents and tell them what is in the report.]

Sample

This is a report on my Internship at (name of company , from (date) to (date), as part of my graduation requirements for the English for Business Communication major at SripatumUniversity.

Inside, you will find both the university’s objectives and my own personal objectives.

There are chapter which discuss … [and you go on to write little about what each chapter and subheadings are about. You tell the reader what is contained in the report, but not in any detail.]

(New page for all subheadings and headings)

1.2 Objectives of the Co-operative Education Program

[The Objectives section is about what the university expected of you. Why did we send you out into Bangkok or other places before you graduated? Explain the program. Usually your Background section doesn’t fill up a whole page, and you don’t have to have a separate page for each section of your report. Write this as if the reader has no idea what the Co-operative Education Programis.]

(Remember, the following are only examples. Do not copy them.)

Sample

Sripatum University’s Co- operative Education is designed to:

provide students with valuable, real-world work experience,

provide students with more training in the field of their choice,

(List other reasons.)

1.3 Personal Objectives

This section is set aside for students to explain what theyexpected to receive from the Co-operative Education Program. Some of the reasons can be the same as the University’s, but it is expected that students be interested in learning additional things from the Co-operative Education Program.

Sample

My objectives for the Co- operative Education were to

• practice my speaking skills with foreign guests

• practice my writing skills to correspond with foreign guests

• [The student can add many more objectives.]

You need not have a separate page for each subsection. For example, although sections 1.1 and 1.2 could be on the same page, it is probably better to have each section started on a page of its own. Although there might be a lot of room at the end of 1.3 Personal Objectives, you might want to start Section 2 on a new page.

2. Methods and Self-Evaluation

[Centered, underlined,16-point Arial, boldface.]

2.1 Procedures

This section describes how you got the Co-operative Education Internship at the company you trained at.

Readers, probably students about ready to do their own internship, want to know all of the steps it took for you to get the internship at the company you picked.

Did you find it in a report from the year before? Did a friend or one of your relatives help you arrange the internship? Was this an area that you think you want to work in after you graduate?

Include all of the steps, including any correspondence (letters from Sripatum, to or from the company, etc), as well as any discussions you had with your advisor about where to intern.

Sample

The procedures are as follows:

• Informed about Co-operative Education by ______.

2.2Self-Analysis

This is one of the favorite parts of the entire report. In this part, tell the reader about who you are, and what you were like before you went on yourinternship.

It is also a very important part of the report for students who read it before going on their own internship.

Before going on theinternship, they may be scared, worried, and/or confused. It’s beneficial for them to read that someone else had the same feelings as theirs. Go back in time and analyze the person (yourself) who went out on the internship. What didn’t you know or know how to do at that time? What didn’t you expect? Were you a hard worker before you went on the intern program? Punctual? Shy? Afraid?

Sample

I am a fourth-year English Business Communication student. I can read and understand most English-language books very well, but if there is hard vocabulary, I must use the dictionary a lot. I can write simple sentences using the present, present continuous, past, past perfect, and future tenses. I am shy …

Sample, above, is very helpful to students who are worried about their own abilities. This student completed her internship and did very well because she understood that she was not perfect in everything. She knew what she had to work on at the company and when to ask for help. It also gives her teachers, here at Sripatum, an idea of how ready students are before they go and do their internship training. It helps us to design our courses better and to include new things in some of our courses.

3. Duties and Responsibilities

(Centered, underlined,16-point Arial, boldface.)

3.1 Responsibilities

Here is where you can write about or list all of the things that you did at your company.

They ought to include all of the things that you will mention in your Weekly Reports, as well as things that you will mention later, in your problems section. For instance, if you write that you had difficulty translating documents, the reader might return to this section; did you include translating documents as one of your responsibilities?

A student next year should be able to look at this short section and see what your daily duties were at your company. In order to prepare themselves, they will want to know allof the things you had to do everyday or weekly.

There is no set order in which you must list your responsibilities. You could start with the duties that you had every day (maybe one of your daily duties was making photocopies) and list the less frequent jobs at the end. Or, you could start with what you feel were the most interesting jobs (maybe being put in charge of setting up a job-fair booth. It may have been only two weeks of your work, but it may be something you want to highlight, by putting it up front, and keep making photo copies for the end of the list of your responsibilities. It’s up to you.

3.2 Weekly Reports

This is pretty straightforward. Just include all of your weekly reports in this section.

Double-check all of your spelling, because this is one section that most people look at, simply because it gives your description of what happened on the job week by week.

Remember, each of these Weekly Reports becomes a separate page number on your Contents page.

4. Problems and Solutions at Work

(Centered, underlined,16-point Arial boldface.)

4.1 Problems

This section either describes or lists the problems you encountered at work.

What problems did you have? Other students can avoid these problems if you tell them what to prepare for. There could be problems with different types of equipment, understanding foreigners, being accepted by your co-workers, overcoming your shyness, etc.

It would be even morehelpful to explain why something was a problem, e.g. “I didn’t know how to use the fax machine and the office usually sends about five faxes a day. My not knowing how to do it meant that someone else had to fax the documents.”

Sample

On my internshipI had some problems and obstacles. I initially panicked and was worried because I was not sure how to solve them, and therefore refused to attempt to solve them. Gradually I tried to understand them and solve them. The problems were that:

• I could not use the office equipment.

[Also list other problems. The problems are in the past tense (verb 2)]

4.2 Solutions

For every problem, there should be a solution, even if that problem were, for example, that you didn’t know very much vocabulary. You could say that you are going to study more when you return to classes at Sripatum.

The solutions section is just as important as the problems section. You need to explain how you solved the problems you listed above. Try to match the solutions with the problems. For instance, the solution you list as number #1 should match the problem you listed above as #1.

Sample

The following are the solutions I used to help me overcome my problems:

• I had to ask people to show me how to use some of the machines. The photocopier was a new model and had a code on it. Each department had a code, and you had to push the right buttons or the machine would not work. Someone had to show me how to use the fax machine, too.

5. Recommendations

[centered, underlined,16-point Arial, boldface.)

5.1 Overall Evaluation

This is where you write your opinion on the value of the Co-operative Education Program.

Sample

I had the opportunity to train at ______for four months, from August20 to December 4, 2008. I worked with other employees in a real-life work situation, which provided me with valuable experience and a lot of job knowledge.

5.2 Advice for Next Year’s Co-operative Education Students

Write this as if new Co-operative Education studentswere reading about internship for the first time. They are probably scared, confused, and don’t know how to prepare for their internship. They are probably looking for advice, not from teachers but from their peers on what to expect and how to behave, as well. Help them. You are their “big sisters” or “big brothers.”

Sample

I would like to make the following recommendationsto next year’s interning students. These are as follows:

• The student should read and know about the rules and policies of the company.
• The student should express himself or herself if she has a problem.

[you need to add another 5 or 6 recommendations]

5.3 Recommendations for the Co-operative Education Program

[ I don’t want to give you ideas here, because I don’t want to influence your answers. But you must have some opinions about the Co-operative Education Program. Think of how to improve the Program!]

Appendices

[Centered, underlined,16-point Arial, boldface.)

Put this on a separate page of its own.

Appendix A: Examples of Work

This is followed by examples of your work.

Sample #1

You could put some documents you typed, or a sample of the faxes you sent. Maybe you had to do some translation. Put some copies in the appendices, if you can.

Don’t just photocopy these documents and put them into your book. Make sure your work supervisor knows and approves of what you are doing. If the documents are sensitive, or the company doesn’t want the address of the other person known, ask if you can black the names out. That is just the format and the content that we would like to see in the book, not the address of the person it went to.

Sample #2

If, for example, you were required to learn codes for flights as part of your job at the airport,

you could put a page of those codes into this book to show how difficult all of that memorization is.

Appendix B: Company Profile

on a separate page.

This is followed by whatever you want to put in about your company, its background, history, management, organization chart, etc.

COMPANY PROFILE

(This part probably has three sections at a minimum. You need to talk a little about when the company started and its history,what it does now, and how it is organized. Most of this information can be found in brochures or information books at the company. Ask someone in the company if he or she knows where this information can be found. If you can’t find a book or brochure, simply ask your boss some questions and write it yourself. In all cases, you should try to take the information you get and put it into your own words.)

History [You don’t need to write a lot about the history, but you should be able to tell the reader when the company was formed, how big the company was then and is now. What has the company done in the past? Add any other information.]

Sample #1 about the airport.

On June 29,1989, the prime minister assigned the Airport Authority of Thailand to set up a new company for operating the airport. [Give more information.] Then the Airport Authority of Thailand signed a contract with The World Travel Service Company, TAFA Thai Company, and Siam Service Limited on March 5, 1990, to establish the Thai Airport Ground Service Co., Ltd., or TAGS. (Follow with more information.)

Responsibilities [This is nota section where you describe your responsibilities. Here you talk about what the company does daily. What, for instance, are the responsibilities of the Tourism Authority of Thailand? Or the Airport Authority? Some students have provided a list of responsibilities for each department.]

Sample #2

Administration Department has the following responsibilities:

• purchasing and paying for materials in the office,

• human resources,

• taking care of company assets, and

• general administration.

Secretarial Department has the following responsibilities: