The student must maintain trust and honesty to ensure the integrity of his COOP report. Any cheating in the COOP report shall render the student subject to punishment in accordance with the university disciplinary rules.

TITLE PAGE

The title page serves as the first page the report. The main function of the title page is to identify the COOP report. It should contain the following:

• University, college and department names.

• Course title and number.

• Title of the report.

• Student’s name and ID number.

• Coop advisor name.

• Name of the company.

• Date of submission.

The title of the report should be short but descriptive enough to distinguish it from other reports on similar subjects.

SUMMARY

The summary of the report appears first and should be written last. The summary should be written concisely in such a way to deliver the message and state all the important aspects of the report. It may include an introductory statement to the subject matter and briefly describe what was done. Moreover, it may also include some selected key results.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The acknowledgements consist of few sentences where the student thanks and appreciates those who have helped him during the COOP program. It is a matter of courtesy that the student gives credit to other people who have contributed to the success of his work.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The table of contents should list all chapters, sections and subsections of the report along with the corresponding page numbers to enable the reader to easily locate any information in the report. It should be clear and separate from the rest of the report.

INTRODUCTION

The introduction of the report has two functions. First, it includes brief statements introducing the job description portion of the report. Second, it includes brief statements discussing the case studies portion of the report.

JOB DESCRIPTION

The first main portion of the COOP report is the job description. The student may organize the job description as follows:

• A description of the whole organization.
• A description of the department that the student worked with.
• What did the student do there and for how long?
• The major projects the student was involved in.
• List the various experiences the student was connected with.
• If the student wrote letter reports during COOP, he should summarize them in this section and then give an example in an Appendix.

CASE STUDIES

This is the most important portion of the COOP report. The student should have arranged with his mentor and his advisor on how to prepare this portion of the report. This portion of the report may be organized as follows:

Objectives

The student should describe the objectives of his project in two or three sentences.

Procedures

The student should explain what was done to accomplish the objectives. He should clearly explain if he has done these procedures by himself or by someone else.

Unit Description

A description of the specific unit or operation of the industrial process should be provided in this section. Illustrations and photographs should also be provided if necessary. Block and/or process flow diagrams should be provided and labeled explaining all details of the process.

Technical Description

The technical details of the selected topic should now be given, including calculations and basic theory. It should be shown how the technical background relates to the student’s own study.

Results and Discussion

All results should be summarized here in the form of tables and graphs. The student should interpret the results and discussed them both qualitatively and quantitatively and should state the accuracy and any possible sources of errors.

CONCLUSIONS

This section is sometimes combined with the recommendation section, yet the function of each is distinct. The purpose of the conclusion section is to summarize any new information derived from the work described in the report. It is sometimes presented as numbered statements, each distinct and each stating facts alone.

RECOMMENDATIONS

In contrast to the statement of facts in the conclusions, the recommendations present a course of action and reflect the opinion of the student. In the recommendations, the student can make suggestions about modifying the COOP program, methods of changing company policy and even changing the operation of a plant.

REFERENCES

This section is the last before the appendix. The original sources of any literature referred to in the report should be listed here. This listing should be numerical and should be based on the order of appearance in the report. There is a standard formal used for most scientific references. The information should be arranged as follows:

• Author's last name, followed by his initials.
• The name of the book or article.
• If it is an article, the name of the journal where it appears.
• If it is a book the publisher and edition.
• The volume number of the journal.
• The date of publication.
• Page number.

APPENDICES

In order to make any report more readable, all supporting data should be placed in the appendices of the report. This may include the following:

• Organization charts.
• Maps of areas worked in.
• Letters involving job assignments.
• Letter reports.
• Detailed drawings.
• Test run data.
• Tables, graphs, illustrations and photographs (when not an essential part of the report).
• Copy of the covering letter to the COOP report.
• Sample calculations.