You will write a policy brief related to the piece of legislation that you selected to focus on for your portion of your group presentation. The policy brief should be factual and evidence-based, and should clearly articulate a recommendation/position on the issue. The paper should be in a policy brief format – please see this file for examples and instructions on how to complete a brief: Policy Brief Examples
You must have an aesthetically pleasing brief- which means it is pleasing to the eye. Should have color, be organized for easy reading with not an overwhelming amount of information. Should contain stats and/or pictures.
Should contain the following information, but you can structure it according to the Policy Brief document (there are a lot of great recommendations and examples in there):
Title – informative yet catchy
Summary – introduces topic and grabs reader’s attention; state the problem (What is the problem? Why is it important?); Background, context (What happens, where, who is involved?); Causes of current situation (Why? Give evidence or examples.); Effects of current situation (What effects does it have? Give evidence or examples.
Recommendations – can be anywhere on the brief, but should make sense and be clearly stated.
Introduction – should give background information and expand on summary.
The body (the main text) – brief in paragraph form. Make sure you can answer the question “so what?”
Policy implications -recommendations, revisions, etc for the policy
Conclusions – keep it short, and this is optional.
and
The masthead (the series title)
Authors
Acknowledgements
Publication details
References
It should be clear whether your brief is an objective or advocacy brief. Keep it to one -two pages. Be a little creative with it.
