For the first step towards our Final Project, you’ll be composing a Community Issue Brief focused on the civic issue you’re choosing to focus on for your final project, following the genre guidelines of a policy issue brief. This genre is extremely common, and is used across all advocacy areas. (This is also a common writing assignment in social work, environmental science, education, or health sciences classes.)
What is a Policy Brief?
A policy issue brief is a short, neutral summary of what is known about a particular issue or problem. It is widely used in government and industry and describes a public problem, one that may or already does affect, or is affected by, government. Analysts prepare such briefs for folks like legislators, managers, or other “people in charge” who may know little or nothing about the topic, but need to have a general background, quickly. The issue brief synthesizes a large amount of complex detail, so the reader can easily understand the heart of the issue, its background, the stakeholders, and any recommendations or even educated guesses about the future of the issue. It may have tables and graphs (the better ones usually do), and it usually has a short list of references so the reader knows something about the sources on which it is based and where to go for more information.
- UNC Chapel Hill’s writing center has an excellent guide to policy briefs.
- The environmental school at Duke University also has a great guide.
- For something lengthier, with annotated examples, SAGE Publications has this chapter. (Ignore the water marks… I got it from their website so I’m not sure why it’s says “don’t post” when they, themselves, posted it??)
- Looking for real-world examples?
- International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s brief on the ocean and climate change
- National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities’ brief on student debt
Assignment Requirements
- No less than 1 full page, but no more than 2 full pages. (I’m usually not that picky, but this is a pretty specific genre.)
- Should contain references to scholarly, peer-reviewed research to build context about the issue’s larger importance as well as any local news or local governmental information that is relevant, cited in MLA or APA format.
- Have a catchy title to grab your reader’s attention and show what the brief is about.
- Maintain an objective tone throughout the brief.
- Should contain clear subheadings for the following sections:
- Overview or Summary – Introduces issue as a whole and proposed actions; very brief
- Context – What is the scope of the issue? Why is this issue urgent? Is anything currently being done about it?
- Action Items – What can be done? What possible actions CAN be taken to solve the issue?
- Recommendations – What SHOULD be done to solve the issue?
- Bibliography – Citations for all sources consulted
- Can be organized on the page as either a graphic (infograph-style) or paragraph form.
- Charts and graphs are strongly recommended, but not required.
Due Dates
1st Draft: Thursday, March 23rd
2nd Draft: Thursday, March 30th
Final Revisions: Thursday, April 27th
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