Internship
The Internship option consists of a 250 hour Internship (ca. 210 hours of placement) and a Research Essay (ca. 40 hours) of approximately 30 pages, discussing the internship project in relation to issues which have been the subject of the student's research in the course of the year. The Research Essay will be marked by the student’s supervisor and assigned a numeric grade. While the program generally has internship opportunities available through EditionsTrent and a few other places, the responsibility to find a suitable internship lies with the student. The following are examples of internships that Public Texts students have held in the past
Internships Recently Completed or in Progress
- editorial and publishing assistant for Cormorant Books
- textile collection researcher and responsible for organizing and mounting textile exhibit for Clarington Museum and Archives Clothing and Textiles Collection
- editor and writer for Peterborough GreenUp
- program assistant with Public Energy
- editorial assistant at the Porcupine's Quill
- editing a play for publication by the 4th-Line Theatre Company
- assisting Charles Foran in researching his biography of Mordecai Richler (2010)
Ongoing Internship Opportunities
The following internships are available on an on-going basis over the next few years. Please indicate if you are interested in one of these internships in your statement of interest.
- Database Maintenance for Library and Archives Canada Mass Digitization Project
- Assisting in the maintenance of a database for the Library and Archives Canada digitization project, whose aim is to digitize modernist literary manuscripts in the Archives.
- Archival and Special Collections
Optional: Humber in the Summer
An internship typically consists of three semesters. Students take two semesters of courses in the Fall/Winter session, followed by an internship and the completion of a Research Essay in the Summer session. However, there is also a four-semester option in collaboration with the Creative Book Publishing Program at Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning. This option consists of two semesters of courses at Trent in the Fall/Winter session, followed by courses at Humber College in the Summer session, and an internship and the completion of the Research Essay in the following Fall semester. Students choosing this option will earn an Ontario Graduate Certificate from Humber College in addition to their Master’s degree from Trent University (see Admissions for details.) Note: Students enrolled in the Humber College certificate program have the opportunity to compete for a range of internship possibilities in the publishing field.
Please indicate if you are interested in the Humber option in your statement of interest.
Schedule
The student and supervisor will meet as soon as possible to discuss the student’s project. In the case of the three-semester option, the student and academic supervisor will work over the course of first term towards developing the internship proposal. In some cases the academic supervisor will supervise the internship directly (for example, when it involves an editing project directed by the academic supervisor). In most cases, though, there will be a separate internship placement supervisor. In consultation with their supervisor, students should aim to have their internship in place early in second term when the student and supervisor(s) will fill out and sign an Internship Placement Agreement and a Work Education Placement Agreement/Post-Secondary to be submitted before the Internship begins. In estimating the placement hours the assumption should be that the total internship placement, which is the equivalent of a full credit, should involve approximately 250 hours, including time spent researching and writing the research essay. In early April, students will make a public presentation of their internship proposal at the Research and Professional Development Seminar. The internship will typically last for up to three months. It will generally take place in the third semester, although in some cases, depending on the nature of the project, it may begin earlier. In the case of the four-semester option, the procedure will be the same, but the Internship Placement Agreement can be submitted at the end of the summer semester; the April presentation for these students can relate to research into some aspect of the area of Public Texts in which they hope to find internships.
Evaluation
At the end of the placement period, the Internship Placement supervisor will make a report on the placement to the Academic supervisor. If the report is satisfactory, the student will write the Research Essay and submit it at a time agreed upon with the Academic supervisor who will grade it by the end of August for the three-semester option, and December for the four-semester option, at the latest.