After completing an internship, interns must provide a written account of their experience in order to receive school credit for the completed internship. Most of the time, the completion of the internship requirement rests solely upon the internship report submitted, so it is necessary that the report should be a document that is concise and well-written and also points out experiences that the student has gained from the internship which he or she had not known before.

Writing a good and coherent internship report also helps in practicing one’s writing ability, which is a very important asset in the workplace today.

An internship report example will include three components:

• Outline and basic information of the company in which the student interned with
• Summary of the work done
• Discussion of the specific aspects of the internship term that are relevant to the student’s field.

In doing so, the report should demonstrate the student’s ability to properly communicate what was done during the internship and how those activities relate to the student’s field in the bigger picture.

The first two components can be brief and can be included in the report’s introduction. The third component is the major focus of the report, and is referred to as the analytic component. It is so called because the student will not only gather information on the internship but also interpret them. This helps the student to develop written and analytic skills, and to present ideas and information in a clear and organized manner.

Internship Report Layout

Ideas and information should be laid out in a logical manner, so it is suggested to divide all information gathered and group them into categories. Each category can be put under headings or subheadings, and may be ordered or rearranged. Some information may be discarded, while others may be merged into other categories. When this is done, the student will have a good basis for the outline and ultimately for the report’s table of contents.

While there is no strict rule for writing internship reports, a typical report contains three main sections:

• Preliminaries
• Main text
• Reference material

The preliminaries contain of the title page, acknowledgement and endorsement, executive summary, and the table of contents. The title page contains all necessary information that is needed to introduce the reader to the report, such as the student’s name, report title, employer’s name and location, and date of report. The acknowledgement and endorsement should state that the document was written by the student and that it has not already received any academic credit from any other institution. The executive summary summarizes the body of the report, its scope, purpose, recommendations and conclusions. The table of contents should include all sections and sub-sections of the report.

The main text of the report should have an introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction defines the report and should prepare the reader for what is in the body. The body is where all main information of the report is found, and is the longest part of the report. The conclusion should answer any question raised in the introduction and must state how the goals of the internship were met. The report should also contain recommendations, in which proposed plans of action for the future are written.

In doing internship reports, the student must plan what to write well early in order to avoid making last minute reports which usually result in poor writing quality and an unsatisfactory grade. Planning is key to writing a good internship report.

Be sure to check out our guides on writing an internship cover letter and resume along with examples.