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Internship Guide

Information for all stages of the Internship process: before, during, and after

Professional Readings - Details and Suggestions

Throughout your career, you will be required--whether explicitly or implicitly--to be familiar with current trends and technology in your field.  A common term for this type of activity is professional development.  If you are lucky, you will have hands-on professional development experiences such as attendance at conferences and workshops.  However, an easy and relatively inexpensive type of professional development involves reading the literature and publications of your field.  Although these publications used to be print formats such as newsletters, magazines, journals, and books, much of the sources for professional readings are now electronic.

During your internship, you are required to complete 4 professional reading-related assignments that will require you to explore the publications that pertain to your field of study.  You can find the publications on the internet (look for reliable sites) and/or through the library's online resources. 

The 4 different assignments are described in more detail on the other tabs of this page, available at the top of the box:

  1. Solving Problems
  2. Project Research
  3. Major Publications in the Field
  4. Types of Sources/Publications

 

If you need help with these assignments and/or finding/accessing appropriate sources, please contact the Central Penn Library (library@centralpenn.edu) for assistance.

 

Examples of sources for articles:

Items marked with (*) are available in print at the library in Summerdale.  Contact the library (library@centralpenn.edu) if you're a non-Summerdale student and would like to use any of the print resources.

Items marked with (FT) are available in full-text from our EBSCO database (available from the Library tab in Blackboard).  For help using EBSCO, check out our EBSCO guide.

Field of Study Website or Magazine/Journal Name
Accounting AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) website
  Accounting Today (FT)
  Journal of Accountancy (FT)
   
Business SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) website
Bloomberg Businessweek (FT)
Wall Street Journal *
Harvard Business Review (FT)
   
Communications

American Press Institute website

Advertising Age * (FT)
PR Week *
   
Criminal Justice National Institute of Justice website
Corrections Today * (FT)
Officer.com (includes Law Enforcement Technology magazine *)
Homeland Security Department of Homeland Security website
Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security International *
Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University (website)
   
Information Technology ComputerWorld (website)
Communications of the ACM (FT)
IEEE Spectrum
NetworkWorld (website)

Assignment #1: Solving Problems

Begin the first few weeks of your internship identifying a problem/difficulty that you are noticing within not only your field, but also your specific internship.  Find sources that help you create a solution to the problem you identified.  List the sources in APA format.

If you need help finding/accessing appropriate sources, please contact the Central Penn Library (library@centralpenn.edu) for assistance.

 

Examples:

Field of Study Problem Source Example
Accounting Firm needs better marketing Duffy, H. (2019). The benefits of outsourcing your firm’s marketing . Retrieved from https://www.accountingtoday.com/opinion/the-benefits-of-outsourcing-your-firms-marketing
Business E-Commerce site runs slowly Sweeting, M. & Cardozo, D. (2018). Four common causes of a sluggish ecommerce website. Retrieved from http://www.netsuiteblogs.com/4-common-causes-of-a-sluggish-ecommerce-website
Communication Changing/modifying a brand's image (public relations) Bradley, D. (2018). Changing pancake paradigms: IHOP's CMO on the infamous IHOb campaign. PRWeek 21(7), 18-19. Retrieved from https://www.prweek.com/article/1488612/changing-pancake-paradigms-ihops-cmo-infamous-ihob-campaign
Criminal Justice Report writing needs improvement (police department) Bowden, J. (2013). How to write organized and concise police reports . Retrieved from https://www.policeone.com/investigations/articles/6289855-How-to-write-organized-and-concise-police-reports/
Homeland Security 3D printed guns: threat or hype Gewirtz, D. (2018). What counterterrorism professionals needs to know about 3D printing and desktop fabrication. Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International 24(2), 8-9.
Information Technology Best browsers for cloud-based software Keizer, G. (2019). Top web browsers 2019: Microsoft needs to rebuild Edge before Edge disappears. Retrieved from https://www.computerworld.com/article/3199425/web-browsers/top-web-browsers-2019-microsoft-needs-to-rebuild-edge-before-edge-disappears.html

 

Assignment #2: Project Research

By your third week of internship you may be beginning to work on specific projects within your internship.  Identify a project that you are currently working on and find sources that would help you research for and complete this project.  List the sources in APA format.

If you need help finding/accessing appropriate sources, please contact the Central Penn Library (library@centralpenn.edu) for assistance.

 

Examples:

Field of Study Project Source Example
Accounting Plan to increase number of firm's clients Duffy, H. (2019). The benefits of outsourcing your firm’s marketing. Retrieved from https://www.accountingtoday.com/opinion/the-benefits-of-outsourcing-your-firms-marketing
Business Suggestions to improve speed of e-Commerce site Sweeting, M. & Cardozo, D. (2018). Four common causes of a sluggish ecommerce website. Retrieved from http://www.netsuiteblogs.com/4-common-causes-of-a-sluggish-ecommerce-website
Communication Plan for changing/modifying a brand's image (public relations) Bradley, D. (2018). Changing pancake paradigms: IHOP's CMO on the infamous IHOb campaign. PRWeek 21(7), 18-19. Retrieved from https://www.prweek.com/article/1488612/changing-pancake-paradigms-ihops-cmo-infamous-ihob-campaign
Criminal Justice Suggestions for improving report writing (police department) Bowden, J. (2013). How to write organized and concise police reports . Retrieved from https://www.policeone.com/investigations/articles/6289855-How-to-write-organized-and-concise-police-reports/
Homeland Security Information on 3D printed weapons Gewirtz, D. (2018). What counterterrorism professionals needs to know about 3D printing and desktop fabrication. Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International 24(2), 8-9.
Information Technology Doing penetration testing Cardwell, K. (2014). Building virtual pentesting labs for advanced penetration testing. Birmingham, UK: Packt Publishing. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/centralpenn-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1644005

 

Assignment #3: Major Publications in the Field

Find, identify and subscribe to specific publications related to your field of study. 

When you are working in your field, you will be expected to stay current on trends. Reading the relevant websites, RSS feeds, magazines, journals, etc. on a regular basis is a good way to do this. Subscribing to these sources (when that’s an option) will send the articles right to your email on a regular basis. 

To complete this assignment, you may utilize the “Guides to our Programs” section of the 'Academic Resources' page of the Library tab on Blackboard and/or the "Research Guides per Major" section of the 'Research Help and Tutorials' guide.  If you need help finding/accessing appropriate sources, please contact the Central Penn Library (library@centralpenn.edu) for assistance.

 

Look for publications that not only relate to your field in general--you should include at least 1 of those--but also look for some that cover the area(s) of your field you are most interested in, where you hope to make your career.  See the table below for some examples of majors, their subfields, and example publications.

 

Major Area of Study Subfield Website or Magazine/Journal Name
Accounting Auditing Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory
Business Entrepreneurship Entrepreneur.com
Communications Broadcasting

FierceBroadcasting and FierceVideo
Criminal Justice Juvenile justice National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges website
Homeland Security Border security Border Security Publications, DHS website
Information Technology App programming Codecademy

Assignment #4: Types of Sources/Publications

For this assignment, focus on understanding the difference between a popular magazine, trade magazine, and academic journal. This will help you understand the different kinds of sources and when each is appropriate. 

Choose one article from a source specific to your field of study (i.e. not an article from a general source like The New York Times).  Provide who the author(s) is and share why you would trust that author(s) and source.  When utilizing sources, it is important to do background research on those sources to identify their credibility. 

 

The library has several specific resources available to help with this assignment: Types of Sources Tutorial and Evaluating Sources guide.

 

See the table below for examples of the different types of sources.

Popular Magazine Trade Magazine Academic Journal
Popular Science Southwest Farm Press American Journal of Agricultural Economics
Time Magazine Travel Agent International Journal of Progressive Education
Harrisburg Magazine Library Journal Journal of Chemical Physics