Work Reports

Non-confidential work reports must be submitted online prior to 4:30 pm on the 2^nd Monday of the term.  

Any report that is submitted after the deadline will be treated as a failed course, and receive a mark of 38%. This grade will not be included in your term average. An attempt to clear this fail can be made by submitting a printed and bound report at the start of any subsequent term. Note that the 38% mark will remain permanently on your transcript.

The UG office cannot accept submissions earlier than the 1^st day of the term.

Work Reports should not be classified as confidential unless absolutely necessary.

Confidential reports may be marked, in confidence, one of two ways: 1) marked by the Associate Chair undergraduate studies, Director of Mechatronics or delegate in the department of Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering or 2) marked by a licensed engineer at your place of employment. For both types of confidential work report Guidelines should be provided to your employer

For those students submitting confidential reports marked by Associate Chair, Director of Mechatronics or delegate reports, a paper copy is required that includes a copy of the Mechanical Work Report Confidentiality Agreement or Mechatronics Work Report Confidentiality Agreement bound into the report in form of the title page. The report must be submitted to your Academic Adviser, Meghan Bester (mechadvisor@uwaterloo.ca) or Liz Skibicki (eskibicki@uwaterloo.ca) before 4:30 pm the 2nd Monday of the term. 

For those students submitting confidential, marked by employer reports, please submit the Employer Evaluation Request Form to your Academic Advisor Meghan Bester (Mechanical) or the Employer Evaluation Request Form to Liz Skibicki (Mechatronics) by the end of the first month of each term. 

Note: Only one of your required work term reports may be 'Confidential, Marked by Employer'.    If your current employer is not willing to allow the Associate Chair or Director of Mechatronics to mark the report, then you must write a "Self-Study" work report on the topic totally unrelated to your place of employment.  There is no limit to the number of confidential, marked by Associate Chair, Director of Mechatronics or Delegate reports that can be submitted.

Also Note: To maintain confidentiality, we cannot consider confidential report submissions for the for the top work report awards for the term.

Selecting a Suitable Topic: Ideally, your report will describe a technical task or project that you completed during your work term. The report, however, can also be based on a prior work placement, work completed for a student team, or on a technical topic of interest (called a self-study report). The important point is that the report must meet two acceptable standards:

1. The report must have analytic content. It must describe a challenge or problem (this is the purpose of the report), what methods were considered to meet the challenge, which one was selected, and how it was implemented it (this is the analysis), what the results were, and the main conclusions and recommendations. Generally, reports without a critical engineering analysis, such as descriptions of processes, systems, equipment or mathematical models or a literature or web page review are unacceptable work report topics.

Note: Many students have the misconception that a decision matrix is a required part of a work report. This is not the case. While a decision matrix can be a useful tool during the design process, it is usually not required.     

2. The report must meet acceptable standards of technical communication. In this regard, there are several sources of information that you should be reviewed carefully.

• Guidelines for Technical Report Formatting : Some deviations from this format are acceptable, with the exception of the order and organization of the front matter, referencing, and a stated objective. Presenting a neat, logical, consistent format is more important than conforming to an arbitrary standard, and clear communication is always more important than anything.
• Guidelines for Technical Report Writing
• Mechanical Work Report Template A and Work Report Template B : These templates are a guide/example only.
• Mechatronics Work Report Template A and Work Report Template B : These templates are a guide/example only.
• Common Work Report Error Checklist
• Work Report Marking Sheet

Note: Students are required to clearly define the role they played in the project and precisely what help was provided. This is done via the Letter of Submittal. Please do not write: "This report was prepared and written by me and I would like to thank Jane Smith for her help." Explain who suggested the project, what your job was, and precisely what help Jane Smith gave. Was she your boss or an assistant? Did she help you, or did you help her? How do we contact her? For example:

"I would like to acknowledge the help of Mrs. Jane Smith, Head of Engineering, who defined the purpose of the project, helped me choose the test methods, and proof-read my final report. My role in the project was to select and calibrate test equipment, make the measurements, collect and analyze the data, and write the report. The project lasted 3 months. Mrs. Smith can be contacted at (905) 555-1234. I would particularly like to thank Mr. John Doe, who provided computer code for analyzing the test data, and Mr. John Buck who typed the first three drafts of this report."

Your Letter of Submittal must be signed.

Also Note: The most common reasons for a resubmit decision on a work report are improper referencing, and no stated objective. Every report must have in-text referencing, and a clearly stated report objective: both in the introduction.

Work Report Marking: Work Reports are either marked by a faculty member or by a graduate assistant working under the direction of the Associate Chair, Undergraduate Studies.

The focus of the marking process changes with each report:

WKRPT200 will focus mainly on technical writing. The marking will be done with the intent of providing feedback to students, and requiring them to fix and resubmit the report before the end of the term.

WKRPT300 will focus on analytical content and technical writing. In an acceptable report, students will need to demonstrate an acceptable level of proficiency in both areas.

WKRPT400 will focus on analytical content and technical writing. In an acceptable report, students will need to demonstrate a good level of proficiency in both areas.

The UG office will not approve or disapprove of a work report topic, because the report marking is NOT based on the quality of the topic selected. Marking is based on the technical content (application of engineering principles), and on a demonstrated proficiency in technical writing. More information about topic selection can be found in the ‘Work Report Content and Formatting Guidelines’ section.

There is no limit on the number of confidential work reports that you can submit, but you can only have one graded-by-employer report. More information about confidential work reports can be found in the ‘Confidential Report Submission’ section.

We do not provide sample reports to students. Guidelines for report preparation are provided in the ‘Work Report Content and Formatting Guidelines’ section. Further, work report 200 submissions are considered to be a formative assessment, and the marking is done with the intent of providing feedback on how to correct report writing, style, formatting, and structure. Having completed work report 200, it is assumed that students now have a model on which to base their 2nd and 3rd work reports.

A resubmit is NOT the same as a fail. In fact, an outstanding work report may initially be assessed a resubmit. A resubmit is simply a mechanism by which your marker can provide you with the opportunity to correct some deficiency in your report.

If assessed a resubmit, it is best to review the comments made, and if necessary, meet with the marker to discuss. Simply address the comments, and resubmit a corrected copy on or before the last day of classes. If the markers comments are suitably addressed in the resubmitted report, a grade will be assigned.

If assessed as unacceptable, the marker will still be providing feedback. You are permitted to correct the deficiencies in the report and to submit it to clear the fail in a future term. You may only do this once, if the corrected report is also assessed as unacceptable, it cannot be submitted again. We will not accept the corrected report during the term in which it was graded unacceptable.

Yes. An acceptable work report to be any one of a number of types of technical document (i.e. research paper, case study, etc). As long as the submission meets guidelines for technical writing and analytical content, it will be accepted for marking.

Ideally, feedback will be provided before the 40th day of lectures or about 10 weeks after the start of the term. Those with online submissions will receive their feedback online. Those with confidential submissions will be contacted by the Academic Advisor when feedback has been returned.

Your report was likely a confidential submission. Confidential submissions are not eligible for work report awards.