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Running head: AN ABBREVIATED TITLE OF LESS THAN 50 CHARACTERS GOES HERE
IN ALL CAPS

CRJU 492: Internship Analysis through Participant-Observation

Your Name and CSULB Student ID #
California State University, Long Beach

Internship Site: <insert here>

Internship Site Supervisor: <Insert Person's Name and Title>
<Insert Site Supervisor's Telephone Number>
<Insert Site Supervisor's Email Address>

Date of Submission Goes Here

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Abstract
Insert Abstract Text Here. (Do not indent.) An abstract provides the reader with a summary of
the key elements of the paper. It includes a sentence or two summarizing the key findings of the
relevant prior literature; a statement explaining that participant-observation research methods
were used; and a short summary of the research findings and general conclusions. The abstract
should be a single paragraph. It should be double-spaced and be less than 120 words.

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Retype and Center Title Here
Insert the first paragraph of text here. This is the area for you to write the introduction to
your paper. Do not, however, use a section heading for your introduction; it is assumed that all
APA papers begin with an introduction, so having such a heading is unnecessary.
Introductions are designed to create interest in what follows in the paper.
Recommendations for starting an introductions range from the use of facts, opinions, and
questions to the use of quotations. Make certain that whatever you decide to use to introduce
your paper is relevant to the focus of your paper. As an example, if your paper is about the
detective bureau, you could open with reference to a well-know case or detective.
Your introduction should be between one paragraph and two pages.

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Review of the Literature
Begin writing your literature review here. Your literature review is expected to be
between ten (10) and twelve (12) pages. It should summarize the landmark and recent literature
written about the type of agency or organization in which you did your internship. Of course, the
literature on some agencies will be overwhelming, so you will need to narrow down your
literature review to a workable topic. For example, if you interned with the canine unit of the
Long Beach Police Department, your literature review should not be about policing in general,
but rather should be about the organization, operations, and management of police canine units.
Your literature review must contain a minimum of fifteen (15) references. Of these, at
least ten (10) must be from scholarly sources (i.e., peer-reviewed journal articles, scholarly books
and/or monographs, and law review articles). The remaining sources may be from books or
journal articles or from newspapers, news magazines, agency or organizational web sites, etc.
To the extent possible, you should divide your literature review into relevant subsections.
Each subsection should be introduced with its own subheading like this:

First-Level Subheadings Are Left-Aligned, Bolded, and use Initial Capital Letters for
Major Words

Second-level subheadings are indented, bolded, are in lowercase letters except for
the first letter of the first word, and end in a period.

Third-level subheadings are indented, bolded, are in lowercase letters except for the
first letter of the first word, and end in a period.

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Be sure to properly cite you work. For help with in-text citations, see:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/02/
and
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/03/

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Methods
Most papers written in fulfillment of the internship paper requirement will use the social
scientific research method known as participant-observation. You should write a two (2) to four
(4) page summary of this research methodology, indicating with specificity how you applied it
over the course of your internship. Thus, for example, your methods section might include the
following.

Time: Record the temporal phases of your research how many hours per day, days per
week, weeks of the semester, and the sequence of your experiences over time as the
observer in relation to your internship (e.g., how things were when you were new, how
things changed as people got to know you and your work; the evolution of your
interpersonal relationships; and how things changed, if at all, as you were completing
your internship.

Physical Environment: Explain the physical location(s) in which you interned.

Primary Actors: Identify the people with whom you worked both regularly and
sporadically. Describe how you learned from them (e.g., did you ask a standard or
similar set of questions to everyone; did you observe them doing their work; etc.).

Social Interactions: Describe how your social interactions at your internship varied
both over time and across situations especially as you transformed from being an
outsider to a routine member of a workgroup. Be sure to include how you learned
about language or jargon that was new to you.

Frequencies of Behaviors: Enumeration of frequencies of various categories of

observed behavior, comparing and contrasting differences in your observations
depending on how often you observed people engaging in certain behaviors.

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Field-Notes: Describe how you recorded your notes. Explain how you coded
behaviors into themes that you then analyze in the rest of the paper.

If you need help with understanding participant-observation, you might consider consulting the
following sources:

Dereshiwsky, M. (n.d.). Qualitative research: Module 3: Essentials of participant

observation. Available online at
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~mid/edr725/class/observation/

DeWalt, K. M., & DeWalt, B. R. (2002). Participant observation: A guide for

fieldworkers. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield/Altamira Press.

Iacono, J., Brown, A., & Holtham, C. (2009). Research methods: A case example of
participant observation. The Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods,
7(1), 39-46. Available online at
http://www.ejbrm.com/vol7/v7-i1/Iacono_et_al.pdf

Jorgensen, D. L. (1989). Participant observation: A methodology for human studies.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Principle Findings
Summarize the major research finding that you made through your participantobservations over the course of your internship. Your will likely have many findings to report,
but you should focus on two or three major findings, again dividing these into relevant
subheadings.
You may use the material that you wrote in your weekly journal entries to write this
section. In fact, your weekly journals should be your primary source of data if you prepared
them correctly as field notes from your participant-observations. Thus, if you have been keeping
your journal properly, completing this section of the paper should be very easy for you. You
should be able to cut and paste text from your log into this section of the paper, and then organize
your observations by topic. Then, you should analyze your findings by comparing and
contrasting what you learned "on the job" at your internship with what you learned from
conducting your literature review. What was similar? (In other words, how were your
experiences like those described in the scholarly literature?) What was different? (In other
words, what do you see that stood in contrast to what you expected from your review of the
literature?)
This section of your paper should be between ten (10) and twelve (12) pages.
When you compare your internship experiences to what you learned through conducting
your literature review, be sure to cite your sources properly. Again, for help with in-text citations,
see:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/02/
and
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/03/

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Conclusion
Write a one (1) to three (3) page conclusion to your paper in which you highlight the
most important thing you learned from your internship.
This would also be the appropriate place for you to include any recommendations that
you have for students who complete the same internship placement (either the internship type or
the specific location) in the future. Additionally, if applicable, include any recommendations for
your supervising professor if s/he were to supervise students in the same internship placement
again.

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References
Insert your properly-formatted references here.

For help with the basic layout of APA citations, see:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/05/
For help citing authors, see:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/06/
For help citing articles in periodicals, see:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/07/
For help citing books, see:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/08/
For help citing secondary sources, dissertations, government documents, and conference
proceedings, see:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/09/
For help citing electronic sources, see:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/
For help citing non-print sources (personal communications, movies, videos, television,
music, etc.), see:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/11/

Finally, for an example of an annotated research paper properly prepared in APA format,
see:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/media/pdf/20090212013008_560.pdf