First Post- 17 May 2024

I’m very excited to be beginning my internship! This is the first of many blog posts I will be making to document my 

journey.


My name is Brendan Campbell and I’m a history major minoring in literature entering my fourth year at the 

University of Central Florida. I discovered the Florida Historical Quarterly internship through my Scholarly Editing 

and Publishing course, and I’m thrilled that I did. I have worked on the Cypress Dome as an editor and taken several 

history courses. I also contributed to the Samuel Johnson online dictionary transcription project last year. 

I have not yet developed a thesis, however I hope the experience I gain from this class might help me to elucidate that

process. The areas of history I tend to be most interested in are American history, throughout the centuries but 

particularly the 19th and early 20th century, and European history, also in the 19th century. I have taken only one 

college course pertaining exclusively to Florida history, but I am fairly knowledgeable about the subject and am 

enthusiastic about learning more. I love working with primary sources and I have experience with handwritten 

documents, though I still find some to be particularly difficult to transcribe!


I met with Dr. Lester today to discuss the work I will be doing over the coming semester. I was given the article 

which I will be reviewing and copy editing for the next few weeks. It has to do with the canning industry in 20th 

century Florida and I’m already eager to learn more! Dr. Lester explained that the work done during this internship 

can be rather tedious, but I generally find that such work becomes so rewarding that it balances out any of the 

minutia required to get it done. Dr. Lester also showed us the various apparatus that the department has at their 

disposal. There were machines for every kind of archival work one can imagine, from books to microfilm to actual 

reels of film. It was very impressive, and it was exciting to see what kind of work the history department does. I’ve

been studying history at UCF for so long, and I feel as if I’ve learned only recently of the possibilities and the

resources available to those studying in the field at this school. I don’t feel it’s too late though; this only made me 

more excited to get involved with this internship.


I must admit that I am more than a little daunted to be handling work that could potentially be published in a 

scholarly journal. I am so used to reading such texts with no sense of authority whatsoever, and though I am well 

aware that I am not actually in a position of scholarly authority over the researchers whose work I will be copy 

editing, it is still strange to be involved in the selection process, even just for practice. I know I need to get past these 

reservations, however, so that my contributions can be helpful and constructive.

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