FAQs for Current Students

Submit your report either in a loose-leaf notebook or thesis binder. The report must have a title page, table of contents, and numbered pages. Your report is a professional summary of your internship. Make sure it is neat, well organized, focused. Proofread for typos. Consider it the writing showpiece of your internship. It should be about 10 pages in length, not including the appendix.

Your report should be divided into four major categories: Summary of the facts: Provide a brief profile of the agency, company or organization for which you worked. Inform the reader about the type of business, number of employees, geographic location, etc. Tell about the identity and the image of the business—how does the business (agency/organization/company) position itself in the industry. Next, move from general information to the specifics about the division or department you worked in. Here you might include an organizational chart of your department. Limit this section to two or three pages. Narrative of what you did and what you learned: You can do this either chronologically by project or by the kinds of tasks performed. Explain exactly what you did on the job. Describe duties/chores in detail. Include writing and/or marketing/account work as well as all other duties. Most importantly, describe what you have learned about the practice of public relations. Self-Evaluation: This is the heart of your report and will largely determine your grade on it. Take a long, hard look at your experience and tell the good and the bad of it. Make constructive criticism of use/misuse of you as an intern. Perhaps you learned something about yourself. Make recommendations and suggestions about how you can use what you’ve learned about yourself. Be sure to bring some insight, analysis and reflective thinking to this section. Don’t generalize and offer superficial, glib observations. Be specific and detailed in describing your experience. Appendix: Include samples of the work you did at the internship. Show a variety of pieces (i.e. instead of 15 news releases, include five and samples of other formats such as features or photos). Layouts, ads, tapes, reports, editorials, brochures, letters, and scripts are also appropriate for this section. What you include here will be determined by the kind of internship you had. If you have nothing to include here, your narrative should explain why this is so.

Stephen Quigley Office: Room 401C, 704 Commonwealth Ave. Office Phone: 617-358-0066 Email: squigley@bu.edu