A SIWES report is a structured account of your actual industrial training: where you trained, what you did, what you learned and the evidence supporting it. This guide gives you the chapter structure, example activity entries for different disciplines, and the mistakes that get reports sent back.
Your logbook already holds the raw material; the next job is making it a connected report. UniDraft helps organise the placement facts and instructions you confirm into an editable SIWES document. Start your SIWES report with UniDraft, then review the account against your real activities and local requirements. Official forms, signatures and approvals remain with the responsible people.
The short answer
- Write the report after the placement, using your signed logbook as the source. Do not retype the logbook; organise it.
- Follow your department's SIWES guideline first. The chapter layout below is the common pattern, not a national rule.
- Put most of your effort into the "work done" chapter. Each task should state what you did, with what tools, and what came of it.
- Support claims with your own evidence: captioned photographs, diagrams, screenshots, outputs.
- Never invent activities, equipment or approvals. Every activity needs a truthful record, and required endorsements must come from the actual supervisors.
What SIWES actually is
The Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme is the programme through which students in approved courses at universities, polytechnics and colleges of education spend a period in industry to gain practical skills. The Industrial Training Fund (ITF) coordinates it, and the ITF's SIWES portal describes it as a link between institutions, employers and students. It lists resources for each group, including the logbook, the SCAF template and Form 8. See the ITF SIWES portal for the official material. If you need the wider background, read what SIWES is.
How long you stay, and when, depends on your programme and institution. Many students spend somewhere between three and six months, and polytechnic and university arrangements differ, so confirm yours with your SIWES unit rather than assuming.
The report you write afterwards is a formal account of that experience. It is distinct from your final-year project: a project tests a research question, while a SIWES report documents what you did in a workplace. If you are unsure of the difference, what a final year project is explains the other side.
The typical structure
Most SIWES reports follow a layout like the one below, though the department's guideline overrides any generic template. Some departments merge chapters, add a chapter on safety, or number them differently. If you know your institution, check its format guide for fonts, margins and reference style before you start writing.
Preliminary pages
Title page, certification page (signed by the supervisors your department names), dedication, acknowledgement, abstract or executive summary if required, table of contents, and lists of figures and tables. The abstract, where required, is easiest to write last. These pages usually use Roman numerals; how Roman and Arabic numbering works in Word covers the section-break setup.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Cover three things briefly: what SIWES is and why your programme requires it, the objectives of your training (what you wanted to learn), and the scope of the placement (organisation, unit, dates, hours). Keep the scheme background proportionate to your brief and give enough detail to identify your own placement.
Chapter 2: Organisation profile
Describe the host organisation's identity, location and services, then explain the specific unit you joined and your role there. Separate company-wide facts from what you personally observed during your placement. Write a relevant summary in your own words rather than reproducing the company's entire "About us" page.
Use this original worksheet before writing the profile:
| Detail to report | How to check it |
|---|---|
| Company identity, history and services | Identify the company publication or authorised briefing, and record its date. Do not infer history from your placement experience. |
| Placement unit and your role | Check your assignment record and logbook; distinguish work you performed from work you observed. |
| Reporting relationships | Use a current authorised chart or confirm the relationships with an appropriate supervisor. |
| Scope and disclosure | Record what you could verify and which internal names, documents or diagrams you may include. |
If a chart is useful or required, show confirmed reporting relationships. Microsoft's organisation-chart guidance explains that purpose. A chart of who reports to whom answers a different question from a flowchart of task steps. Do not draw departments as reporting to one another simply because they appear consecutively in a list. Keep the chart's scope clear if it covers only your unit.
Fictional teaching example — not a real company's structure or a student's placement: a trainee's record identifies the support unit and their assigned supervisor, but says nothing about the finance unit's reporting line. The profile can explain the confirmed placement relationship. It cannot invent a company-wide hierarchy; the trainee should seek clarification or describe only the verified scope, subject to the supervisor's instructions.
Follow your confirmed chapter order and reporting requirements where they differ from this general outline. Ask the appropriate workplace contact about uncertain or confidential material. The appendices guide helps decide where permitted supporting detail belongs, and the figure-caption guide explains how to label a chart you include.
Chapter 3: Description of work done
This is the core. Present your activities either week by week or, more usefully, grouped by unit or skill (for example "network installation", "site surveying", "patient records"). For each one, state the task, the tools or methods used, your specific role, and the outcome. The next section gives illustrative entries.
Chapter 4: Skills acquired, challenges and how they were handled
Two parts. First, the skills gained, tied to the tasks in Chapter 3. Second, real difficulties: a machine that broke down, a misconfigured device, a mislabelled sample, a supervisor unavailable for a fortnight. State what happened and what was done. A short, honest problem beats an invented dramatic one.
For each challenge, use an evidence-to-response note rather than a generic complaint list:
| What happened? | Your response and role | Outcome, limit and evidence |
|---|---|---|
| A real event or restriction, with appropriate dates/context | What you did, observed or escalated; do not claim authority you did not have | What changed or remained unresolved, and the permitted record supporting it |
Fictional teaching example: a trainee may be allowed to observe equipment operation but not operate it independently. A report should distinguish that observation from hands-on competence and explain any supervised work actually completed. This is not a real placement event to copy. Keep confidential workplace details out of the report unless disclosure is permitted.
Use that note when writing your conclusion and recommendations. Recommend an action that follows from the documented problem; do not invent a breakdown, unsafe incident or resolution to fill a heading.
Chapter 5: Summary, conclusion and recommendations
Summarise what you gained, whether the placement met your stated objectives, and make specific recommendations to the organisation, your department and the scheme (for instance, earlier placement letters or better tool access). Recommendations should follow from Chapter 4, not float free. The guide to writing the SIWES report conclusion and recommendations has weak and strong examples for each part.
References and appendices
If you cited standards, manuals or books, list them in the style your department requires; the reference-list guide covers APA, IEEE and Harvard, and the free citation finder helps you locate real sources rather than guess. Appendices can hold selected logbook pages, permitted photographs, forms and diagrams.
Example activity entries by discipline
The entries below are illustrative examples written for this guide. They are not from a real student, company or logbook, and you must not copy them. Their purpose is to show the level of detail a Chapter 3 paragraph needs. Yours must describe what you actually did.
Computer science / IT (illustrative). "During weeks 4 and 5 I assisted the network team in setting up VLANs on a managed switch to separate the accounting department's traffic from the sales floor. I created the VLAN IDs under my supervisor's direction, assigned ports, and tested connectivity with ping from three workstations. One port was left on the default VLAN by mistake; I found it when a workstation could not reach the accounting file server, and corrected it." More examples of this kind are in SIWES logbook examples for Computer Science students.
Civil engineering (illustrative). "On a two-storey building site I observed and recorded slump tests on fresh concrete before casting the first-floor slab. I recorded the readings in the site book, noted the batch time, and reported one reading outside the specified range to the site engineer, who rejected that batch." See civil engineering SIWES report guide for evidence expectations.
Other placements have their own course-specific guides:
- Electrical and electronic engineering
- Accounting, business administration and banking
- Agriculture
- Mass communication and media
- Mechanical engineering
- Laboratory sciences (medical laboratory science, microbiology, biochemistry)
- Architecture, quantity surveying and estate management
Electrical / electronic engineering (illustrative). "I helped test a 500 kVA distribution transformer before commissioning. My task was to record insulation resistance readings with a megger under the technician's supervision and enter them into the test sheet. I also labelled the outgoing feeder cables." Note the modest verb "helped": accurate roles are more credible than heroic ones.
Mechanical engineering (illustrative). "In the workshop I was assigned to a lathe operator for two weeks. I turned mild steel shafts to a specified diameter, checked dimensions with vernier callipers, and recorded rejects. I did not operate the machine unsupervised in the first week."
Health / laboratory sciences (illustrative). "In the haematology section I observed and then performed full blood count runs on the analyser under the scientist's supervision, labelled samples, and logged results in the register. I did not release results to patients." Confidentiality matters here: never include patient names or identifiers.
Business, accounting and administration (illustrative). "In the accounts unit I posted supplier invoices to the ledger, reconciled the petty cash book against receipts weekly, and prepared a draft schedule of outstanding payables for the accountant's review."
Agriculture (illustrative). "On the poultry unit I took part in daily feeding, vaccination against Newcastle disease as directed by the farm veterinarian, and mortality recording. I calculated weekly feed conversion from the farm's record sheets."
Notice what these share: a time frame, a specific task, a tool or method, the student's actual level of involvement, and a result or observation. If your entry could have been written by anyone in any company, it is too vague. For more logbook-level examples, see how to fill your SIWES logbook and the engineering logbook examples.
Turning your logbook into Chapter 3
A practical method that avoids the "retyped logbook" problem:
- Lay out the entries. Put all logbook pages in front of you (or a photographed set). Note gaps and anything unsigned, and raise those through the approved correction or endorsement process, not the night before submission.
- Group them. Sort entries by unit, machine, software or task type. Ten separate days on cable termination become one section.
- Write each group as a short account. Start with the purpose, then what you did, then what you observed or learned. Keep the tone factual and use the past tense.
- Attach evidence. Select permitted photographs or diagrams where they help explain the task and caption each: "Figure 3.2: Patch panel after cable labelling (author's photograph)".
- Check against the log. Every date range and duty you mention must be traceable to a logbook entry.
If photographs are restricted, confirm whether an alternative diagram or description may be disclosed. Redrawing information does not remove confidentiality restrictions. A frank note is better than a stock image.
What actually gets a SIWES report sent back
- Vague activity descriptions. "I learned about networking" tells a reviewer nothing. "I configured VLANs on a switch to separate accounting traffic from the sales floor" shows real, checkable work.
- A report that doesn't match the logbook. Coordinators often cross-check; inconsistent dates or duties are an immediate red flag.
- Missing signatures on the certification page. Both your institution-based and industry-based supervisors typically need to sign, though the exact list is set by your department. The three-way sign-off also appears at the end of your placement on SIWES Form 8, which is a separate document from this report.
- Generic company profiles copied from the company's own website with no connection to what you personally did there.
- Wrong or inconsistent formatting. Mixed fonts, missing figure numbers and a table of contents that does not match the headings look careless. The free formatting checker can compare a .docx against a university's rules. It does not replace your department's own guideline.
- Claiming too much. Writing that you "designed" a system you only watched being built will be caught in a defence. See how to defend your SIWES report: panels ask you to explain your entries.
- Copied text. Passages lifted from manuals, other reports or the internet without attribution are a risk to your grade and reputation.
How SIWES reports are assessed
There is no single nationwide marking scheme in the sources checked for this article. Weights are set by institutions and departments. Common components include the industry supervisor's assessment, the logbook, the report, and sometimes a defence or oral examination. Read how SIWES is graded and whether SIWES affects your CGPA, then ask your coordinator for your department's breakdown in writing.
Before you submit
Run through this checklist:
- Department SIWES guideline obtained and followed (chapter order, page limits, referencing).
- Logbook complete, signed, and consistent with the dates in Chapter 3.
- Certification page signed by every supervisor your department requires.
- Organisation profile written in your own words and linked to your unit.
- Each Chapter 3 activity states task, tools, your role and outcome.
- All photographs are your own, permitted, captioned and mentioned in the text.
- Confidential information (client data, patient details, proprietary designs) removed.
- Chapter 4 problems are real; recommendations follow from them.
- Table of contents, list of figures and page numbers updated.
- Sources cited in the required style.
- File saved as a backup; print copies bound if required.
Two further steps are worth doing before this goes to your department: confirm your logbook entries are specific enough to support what you've written, and go through the pre-submission checklist for departmental review so signatures, preliminary pages and formatting do not cause an avoidable bounce-back.
Turn a logbook entry into a technical explanation
Fictional teaching example: the logbook note "Assisted with a printer fault check" needs clarification before becoming a report paragraph. What fault was reported? Which checks did you observe or assist with? What did the result of each check show? Who decided the next step? Ask these questions from your records and supervisor's explanation rather than inventing a repair sequence.
Expand the note into purpose → your role → verified procedure → observed outcome → learning. If the fault was escalated, say so. If you have no permitted measurement, do not invent a success rate. Group related activities into an explanation rather than copying daily entries in date order. That is how the logbook supplies evidence for Chapter 3 without becoming the whole chapter.
Where permitted visuals help explain the procedure, use clear figure captions. Put supporting detail in an appendix only when your guideline allows it and the reader has a reason to consult it.
Build the report from a placement evidence sheet
Pick three activities you can explain from start to finish. For each, complete this sheet before expanding it into a chapter.
| Prompt | What to record |
|---|---|
| What needed doing? | The actual task or problem, without confidential client details |
| What did I personally do? | Observed, assisted, carried out under supervision, or completed independently |
| What steps and tools did we use? | A sequence you can explain, with the reason for important choices |
| What happened? | An observed outcome; do not invent measurements or performance gains |
| What proves or supports it? | A permitted logbook entry, drawing, anonymised output or supervisor-confirmed detail |
| What did I learn? | A specific skill or limitation, connected to the task |
For example, "I assisted with a supervised continuity test and recorded the readings" is a different claim from "I designed the electrical installation." Choose the wording that matches your role. A detailed account of a modest real task is more defensible than an impressive task you cannot explain.
Write the SIWES abstract from the finished report and use the acknowledgement guide to thank people for their actual contributions. Then reuse the same evidence sheet for your SIWES defence presentation. Your slides, report and logbook should tell the same story.
Where UniDraft fits in
UniDraft builds the written SIWES report as an editable Word (.docx) document around the placement details and activities you confirm. It applies your supervisor's instructions, your department's guideline and your university's format, in that order of priority, and it does not invent activities, sources or approvals. If you revise after supervisor comments, you supply the corrections, confirm the extracted changes and get a new version; earlier versions are kept. See managing IT/SIWES report corrections. Check the current SIWES price and included correction rounds before checkout.
Be clear about the limits. UniDraft has no part in Form 8, and it does not sign or stamp your logbook; those belong to you and your supervisors. It does not find placements (see how to find a SIWES placement), and it does not promise a grade or approval.
A computing placement needs more than a tool list
For a software, networking, hardware-support or data placement, connect every tool to a task you can explain. The Computer Science SIWES report guide shows how to record your contribution, checks, evidence and limits. A permitted screenshot should support an explanation; it should not expose customer data or substitute for describing your role. Use your department's headings rather than assuming a computing placement has a universal chapter count.
Sources
- ITF SIWES portal: resources for students, institutions and employers, for the scheme's coordination by the ITF and the logbook, Form 8 and SCAF materials.
- ITF SIWES portal home, for the scheme's stakeholder structure (institutions, employers, students).
- APA Style: references, for what a reference must contain if your department uses APA.
