- Find a position description for an internship that interests you and fits your qualifications (more or less). Be sure the internship position description explicitly states it is for an internship. Internships are different than regular employment because interns are entitled to an educational experience that other types of employment opportunities do not need to provide. In upcoming assignments, you will create a custom résumé and cover letter applying for the internship you choose.
- Copy and paste the exact words provided by the hiring organization describing the internship position, requirements and qualifications they are looking for in candidates, and how to apply into a document. Error on the side of including too much information rather than too little. Some of these are only one page, but they can potentially fill many pages. If there is very little information, consider how you can find out more or if you might need to find another internship opportunity. Fix the formatting if it is distorted. This is an essential step because this internship position description will be used throughout the semester and links on the web are often taken down. While you may also want to include a link to the position description, having the exact wording available to you in a document of your own will be necessary.
- Analyze the internship description. If possible, annotate a copy of it. Circle terms that are important to the position. Research the hiring organization, the position, and any key terms you need to know more about so you can “speak their language.” Start connecting your own experiences and qualifications to what the employer is looking for in a candidate.
- Write a reflection (no more than one page) describing why this internship position description is an opportunity you would consider pursuing. Provide a brief summary of what you know about the organization and how that is reflected in the internship position description. Note the key qualifications that you already possess, your experiences that allowed you to develop those qualifications, and qualifications that you are still working on.
- Submit the internship position description from the hiring organization and the reflection you wrote about it as a PDF. Attaching documents as PDFs assures your submission maintains proper formatting.
additional resources
Read How To Choose The Right College Internship (Links to an external site.), Technical Writing: Chapter 12 Employment Materials and Preparation—12 & 12.1 (Links to an external site.) & Technical Writing: Chapter 14 Thinking About Writing —14 – 14.4 (Links to an external site.)
Watch Reading an Internship Description… Closely (Links to an external site.)
PEER REVIEW REQUIREMENTS
Write 2 peer reviews for members of your workshop group. Please review drafts that have no reviews first. When all drafts have been reviewed at least once, please choose drafts with the fewest reviews and/or the drafts that have received the least amount of useful feedback.
To earn full credit, exemplary reviews will provide rhetorically-effective constructive criticism that reflects the requirements laid out in the assignment instructions and follow these guidelines:
Start by briefly noting two or more assignment requirements you will focus on in your peer review.
Create a clear section of the message indicating a positive aspect(s) of the draft and why that assignment requirement is largely successful.
Create a clear section of the message indicating an aspect(s) of the draft that are an opportunity for improvement, which could mean revision and/or further development. To remain as objective as possible, I encourage you to reference what is in the class materials for the assignment, and then what you observe in the workshop draft.
End by summarizing how your experience reviewing the draft impacted you as the reader.
Model effective tone, document design, concision, and close attention to sentence level correctness.
Post reviews in the body of a message as a reply to your classmates’ drafts.
Reviews that only praise the draft without providing suggestions for improvement—changes or areas to expand upon—will not earn full credit.
Requirements: draft & peer reviews