OK, so you have got yourself a placement/ internship/stage…. what now?

INTRODUCTION.

First, you need to remember that in almost all circumstances your placement is academically assessed, usually by means of a placement project based around an analysis and evaluation of some aspect of the placement organisation or the mission you fulfilled within it.  It is often up to YOU to decide and propose placement project ideas and titles to your boss: don’t just assume that a project is ready and waiting for you or will be handed to you ‘on a plate’.

This means that you may well have to be proactive in thinking of ideas.  Generally something that is designed to analyse and evaluate the performance of something with a view to producing recommendations to improve it will go down well both with us and with your placement organisation…. that is to say that you need to find something that you can ‘get your teeth into’: something that does much more than describe what is, but which seeks to analyse, explain, inform, evaluate, draw conclusions, make recommendations….    Clearly we cannot see your distinctive contribution and management ability in mere description or in the simple repetition of others’ work – we need to see you ADD something to the sum total of existing knowledge.

I have tried to articulate this in a series of lectures I have given to SCIMEC M2 and MICAI M1 and M2 students, the supporting material for this being available below (links at the foot of this page)  I strongly recommend that you read this: especially when you are at the point of actually trying to put together a project proposal for agreement by both your employer and ourselves.  Be aware: most project go wrong at this very stage – the definition of the title and aims and objectives… if this isn’t done correctly, then the error is simply magnified by each stage of the project research and write-up.

PROPOSING A TITLE TO YOUR TUTOR FOR APPROVAL AND ADVICE

When you come up with an idea and you want to see whether we think it is a good idea or whether we feel there might be problems associated with it, we need you to provide us with sufficient detail to be able to respond productively and to advise you to the best of our ability.  Just saying: ‘I want to do something on the impact of social networking upon marketing strategies… is this OK?’ does not give us enough to go on. To be able to help you we need certain details and for this reason we have developed a Project Proposal Form.  PLEASE use it!  It is only about a page long with four or five questions – but these are the critical questions we need addressed to enable us to help you!

Here is the proposal form to be sent to tjolley@gmail.com or to ellenchewjolley@gmail.com (according to your designated supervisor).

THE STRUCTURE AND PROCESS OF PROJECTS

here are a series of links to materials I have been using on various Master’s programmes I have been teaching which take you from title to appendices (and back again).  They have been designed so that you simply can’t get ‘lost’ in your own research.  If you read and seek to understand this material you will discover that the research / project delivery process is entirely logical and pretty simple to be honest: one step leads inexorably to the next:-

Read especially:

• the ‘Driven Process’. 

• R1 on choosing titles and articulating appropriate aims and objectives

• R2 on the Research Gap, methodology etc…….when you are ready to write up your research,

• R3 on data presentation, analysis, evaluation etc will help you too…

• The HARVARD system of referencing your sources.  USE IT  (or another recognised, consistent system).  If you don’t, you may find yourself facing the sanctions identified in the PLAGIARISM WARNING below!!!!

• A research support tool – a website that helps you decide what sort of survey you might need and what sort of sampling might be appropriate.

  • You should also look in the library or buy a cheap second hand copy of a Research Methods textbook that will help you define your population, sampling etc and give guidance on survey / interview designs. probably more detailed and helpful than the online ‘research support tool’ linked above.

• Research on a ‘Need to Know’ basis…. a skit I wrote which is reasonably funny, but it DOES encapsulate the whole of the process of research if you think about it….

• Your Report Handbook.  You will have been given a report handbook which gives you instructions and helpful advice. So read, and keep re-reading the Handbook until you understand what is required. Where there are instructions – FOLLOW THEM, where there is advice – TAKE HEED!

I know you may feel that this is a bit ‘heavy or over-the-top’, a bit too detailed etc…. but it WORKS!  

TWO HOME-GROWN REPORT-WRITING SUCCESSES OFFER YOU THEIR WORDS OF WISDOM

One of your predecessors, and one of my tutees, Céline Finger (MICAI M2 2012 / 2013), had her ‘Rapport’ voted the Best in the whole of Alsace (yes, including Strasbourg University and all their many thousands more students! … It is a case of QUALITY not QUANTITY!).  See Céline’s TV  interview on Alsace 20. [NB. Her interview starts about 8 minutes 10 seconds into the link.]  She would be the first to say: « If I can do it – you can do it »….

She has also kindly provided you with Céline’s Top Tips: her recipe for report-writing success.  Remember, this is not a tutor talking – it’s one of you… one who has survived the placement and report-writing experience (and having me for a tutor!) – she knows EXACTLY what you are going through.  Do listen to her!  I have also just heard that in the successor cohort, Frank Milfort also won the same All-Alsace award (eat your heart out Strabourg!!!).  So we must be doing something right on MICAI!!

Charlotte Chaufaille (MICAI2 2014/2015) also wrote a superb ‘Rapport de Stage’ (we are hoping that perhaps she she may follow her predecessors in terms of the award…we’ll see!  Good luck, Charlotte).  Her ‘Introduction‘ was spectacularly well written and edited and she is to be thanked for kindly allowing me to host this part of her Rapport on my website.  If you want to see a good model of how to do it – then HERE it is.  Do read it and see how clear and well-argued it is and try to think how you might do similarly with your own work.   It goes without saying that you should NOT copy it word for word no matter how close your subject might be.

!!!! PLAGIARISM WARNING !!!!

I’m sure you are fed up to the back teeth of hearing about this (believe me, I’m fed up of talking about it!), but we are seeing dramatically increasing numbers of cases (and are set to see more as the sophistication of anti-plagiarism software increases.).  It has come ‘close to home’ in the sense that the teaching teams for your courses have even seen instances of significant plagiarism in major pieces of work like Placement Reports.  On programmes like MICAI the issue of plagiarism is addressed in the M1 Induction Week, on my website when I set up my courses with you, in the Report-writing Handbook you are given, in the Library and elsewhere.  If we feel we see too much ‘citation’ without the requisite ‘attribution’ in assignments, then we will certainly tell you and warn you and maybe even pose some sanction during the taught programme.  The point is that you cannot say: ‘I didn’t know’… ‘I didn’t realise it was so serious’ ….. ‘ I forgot’.….‘Can I have another chance’.  You are deemed to know!  there are no possible excuses….  You may hear of someone who has ‘got away with it’, but don’t let that be an encouragement – we are catching more and more…..

Be aware that when you submit your placement report in hard copy you will also have to provide one in a digital form and ALL theses and placement reports will be routinely submitted to an anti-plagiarism software scan which reveals not only 100% word-for-word copying but copying with limited textual changes to ‘disguise’ the plagiarism.  People are now routinely ‘caught’ – perhaps people you know.  The consequences can be dramatic and can end your academic career and even blight your employment possibilities.  It is not unknown for students to ‘buy’ reports on the open market and submit them as their own or even to significantly copy from other theses or reports as well as articles.  As a result and to protect academic quality and ensure fairness for all (especially those students who really have written every word themselves and duly cited and attributed all their sources) we come down heavily upon those whose plagiarism is proven.  Plagiarism is cheating and the academic system cannot and will not support cheating.

The process is as follows:

• Where the possibility / likelihood of significant plagiarism is indicated by software or by markers, detailed reading and reports are called for to review the evidence. The tutors concerned and the Director of the Programme will determine then what is to be done.
• A zero tolerance policy is in place: any proven plagiarism will be penalised to an appropriate degree
• If the degree of plagiarism is really clear, evidenced and significant (around 10% or more of the volume of the main body of a report) then a University Disciplinary Commission may well be called for where the evidence will be reviewed, the writer called to state his case and a judgement determined.
• The sorts of penalties that could be enforced might range from:
  • failure of a piece of work / unit
  • failure of a year…. with or without an offer to repeat and complete
  • failure of an entire Degree or Master’s programme – leaving with no certificate and no possibility of re-enrolling with the university on this or any other academic programme in the future.
• The result of this may have an impact upon any job secured on the basis that you had/were going to have a degree / Master’s award…..
• The decision is then published widely in all the University faculties as a warning to any and all who might consider plagiarising.

This may seem ‘Draconian’, but do remember that when you put your name to a piece of work or a report you are saying expressly:

« This is all my own work – work by others upon which I have relied has been duly recognised and attributed and recorded in the bibliography such that report-readers can find it and check it.  If I fail to do this and it is not, therefore, all my own work I recognise that I may suffer the consequences…. »

You are earning your own degree/Masters….. should we award a degree to someone who has blatantly cheated and claimed other people’s work as his/her own……………?

As a university, our integrity rests upon the accuracy and fairness of our qualifications and awards.  Plagiarism works counter to both accuracy and fairness and is the antithesis of ‘earning’ a qualification.  This is why we have to come down so hard upon it….   We trust you have got the message and are complying to the full.