David Miles and **********

University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
October 23, 2015
K**** M*********
Peace Corps Headquarters
1111 20th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20526
Ms. M*********,
My name is David Miles and I am an intern at the Peace Corps Headquarters. My research partner
Jason Snyder and I are interested in your career and how writing plays a role in what you do every
day. I am conducting research for an ethnographic research project for a professional writing class at
University of Maryland College Park. My partner and I each have a personal interest in the Peace
Corps and would like to study your writing contributions to the organization and how you use your
professional skills as a writer. We are hoping to learn what documents and products you produce for
the Peace Corps and how you interact and collaborate with other writers to produce them.
Our project would involve on site field research (if permitted), interviews, and studying any
documents produced by you and your collaborators that you are willing to share with us. We expect
this to take place over the month of November. We will use this research to produce an ethnographic
research report which will explore how you manage writing and other communication projects as a
part of your daily work in the unique environment of the Peace Corps.
We fully acknowledge the need to respect the privacy and confidentiality of your workplace's writing
and communication. Your name and any details of the organization will be left out of any documents
we produce, and you will be given full control over and given a chance to examine the documents
before we submit them. We feel this project may help you recognize your skills and achievements as
a writer while informing and inspiring soon to be professional writers.
We would love the opportunity to work with you on this project, as long as it is something you are
willing to participate in. Our goal is to minimize any disruptions to your work, and to take up as
little of your time as possible. We understand you might have questions regarding this proposal,
please contact us with any questions at dmiles@peacecorps.gov and we will follow up with you the
first week of November to discuss further.
Sincerely,
Jason Snyder and David Miles