One of the disadvantages of interning from home is that, well, it’s not very photogenic or blog-worthy.  I have no pictures of an exciting and unfamiliar desk, break room or training event to share.  No fun anecdotes of discovering new-to-me cultural quirks in a different country.  So, for that I apologize to the reader and humbly offer two photographs of the Manhattan skyline I’ve taken this summer.  The first is from the roof of a climbing gym that just opened in our neighborhood.  The second is from the roof of a friend’s art studio.

I do strongly suggest that others’ entries are likely far, far more interesting than what lies ahead here.  But, if you’re curious about desk research and the writing process, read on!  If you finish the whole post there’s a cute picture of my dog at the end.

Over the course of the last few weeks of the internship, work has been progressing at a slow but steady pace.  I have completed two desk studies and written up literature reviews for eventual publication.  The first of these required extensive research into seven unique environmental factors that contribute to or influence children’s reading acquisition.  This was quite a lengthy process, as it was really like completing seven individual literature reviews and distilling the information into the most condensed and coherent summary possible.  Once this was complete, I submitted the review to the head of research, who wrote up the accompanying Methodology, Analysis and Results sections.  My next task for this article is to draft the Discussion, pulling in some of the evidence from the literature review.  I’m excited to say I think this article will be ready for submission to a peer-reviewed journal soon.   The second literature review I wrote took much less time since it was narrower in scope and had some overlap with the first article, so I was able to use many of the same references.

The other project that has kept me busy is a project on the other end of the publication process.  The research team had submitted an article for publication about a year ago and received extensive feedback from the peer reviewers.  I’ve been helping the authors of that study respond to the feedback, revise the paper and add additional evidence to the argument when it’s helpful.

Although this post began with a disadvantage about remote interning, there are some advantages, of course.  One such advantage is that my internship will continue on in to the Fall semester.  Although I will be starting up classes back at Penn next week, my internship is not over and I will be continuing to support the research and writing endeavors of the Save the Children educational research team for several more weeks. In that time, I will also be taking a couple of trips down to DC to meet the team there!  I’m looking forward to those visits and sharing some exciting office pictures at that time.

In non-work related news I am lucky enough to have a really good friend who works at a high-end coffee shop in Manhattan.  If I come in to work there, she makes me a free cortado and sometimes slips me a doughnut, so I’ve been going there a few hours a week to get out of the house.  One of those times I saw Cynthia Nixon in the subway (apparently she was famously on Sex and the City, a show I never watched but now she’s running for NY governor).  I managed to snap a picture as she was being interviewed/mobbed by fans.

This was not my only celebrity sighting this summer!  My partner and I also spied Julia Roberts waiting for a cab outside a local chain burger restaurant.

As promised, here’s a picture of handsome Pepe for making it through this whole blog post: