report-resources

Formal Report Resources For writing your Formal Report on trends in communication and technology in your intended profession

NOTE: For real-world sample reports of various lengths and formality, and addressed to a variety of audiences, from students to U.S. Presidents, I've created a separate page here.

toc =FIRST STEPS= Good places to start:

Primary Interview
For working toward the interview you'll need to set up with a current professional in your intended field > []
 * **Marquette University Career Services Center, Online Library.** As part of the Center’s Career Exploration Series, they have created guides to conducting an “Informational Interview” and “Job Shadowing,” available as PDFs, at

Library Resources
> []
 * The Instruction Librarians affiliated with our course, Sue Peacock and Pat Berge, have developed a research guide for the Raynor Library on doing Career Research of the sort you are doing for this project, which you can link to at:

Within this page, note that there are tabs to take you to different kinds of sources:


 * [|Government data], such as //O*Net Online//. O*Net is a U.S. Department of Labor guide to jobs and industries that overlaps with the OOH, but is more geared to online research, and searchable by a variety of criteria other than just the industry: for example, by level of necessary training, job skills, or even particular tools/technology you might use on the job.
 * [|Professional Organizations], such as the //Encyclopedia of Associations// (see also my notes on Organization in the next section of this wiki page).
 * [|Article databases], such as the portal for //ABI/Inform Trade & Industry//, a database covering more than 700 trade journals (for specific trades) and industries and business newswires.

Professional Organizations
You can glean a wealth of up-to-date information from the web sites, trade journals, and newsletters of organizations devoted to promoting your professional field and supporting the development of professionals within that field. Such organizations offer information and perspectives -- sometimes very pragmatic, sometimes taking the scholarly long view -- about emerging trends and practices within a profession.

Finding Yours
If you don't know the professional organization for your field, you can often simply search engine the name of the field and the words "professional organization" or "professional association." Or you can consult the databases that Instruction Librarian Sue Peacock has linked to at:

> []
 * **Professional Organizations**

Sample Organizations
Here are some examples from just a few fields. But rest assured: just about every field and sub-field has its own trade group or professional society. And regions and even large cities often have their own chapters.

> [|www.abanet.org/] > The ABA describes itself at "the largest voluntary professional association in the world." And while a good part of their work involves lobbying (itself a useful guide to changes in the professional), they also offer a whole page of "[|Member Resources]," including a large section on "Professional Development." > [|www.prsa.org/] > [|www.ada.org] > [|www.igda.org/] > [|http://www.schoolcounselor.org] > [|http://www.nea.org]
 * **American Bar Association (ABA)** -- lawyers
 * **Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)**
 * **American Dental Association (ADA)**
 * **International Game Developers Association (IGDA)**
 * **American School Counselors Association (ASCA)**
 * **National Education Association (NEA)** -- kindergarten, elementary, middle, and secondary school teachers

Trade Journals
Many professional associations and industry trade groups will publish periodicals and newsletters reporting on the profession, its practices, and its issues and challenges. Our course Instruction Librarian, Sue Peacock, provides a [|link] to library databases such as //ABI/Inform Trade & Industry// for access to such journals and their articles (including those not on the open web and available only through Marquette's subscription).

It's also worth browsing the physical collection of current holdings of such journals on the 2nd floor of Raynor. Here are some examples of trade journals, some of which make content available on the open web:

> //ABAJournal: Law News Now// > [|http://www.abajournal.com/#?gnav=abajournal] > > //Public Relations Journal// > [] > > //Northwest Dentistry// > []
 * **American Bar Association**
 * **Public Relations Society of America**
 * **Minnesota Dental Association**

=SAMPLE REPORTS=

Go here: these include sample:

By Former Students
Actual successful formal reports authored by students in the previous semesters. These will give you a sense of what such a report should like like, how it is set up, and how other students have thought about doing the research and organizing the results of this project. CAUTION: as with all such samples, none are perfect. And keep in mind that these samples were produced for a similar but NOT identical assignment.

By Other in a Variety of Professions
I've created a separate page on this wiki with links to PDF versions of actual real world report of various lengths and formality, and addressed to a variety of audiences, from students to U.S. Presidents.