Policy Brief

Assignment:

As a consequence of your ongoing research, topic proposal, annotated bibliography, interviews, and surveys of students, it is finally time to compose your policy brief! Before you start composing, determine a specific audience for your document. To whom are you speaking? Who can help you take the action you propose? Write your policy brief with this group in mind.

When drafting the text of your policy brief, include the following elements:

1. An interesting title
2. An engaging and thoroughly-researched introduction to the topic
3. A discussion of the problem at hand
4. A convincing argument for your proposed solution
5. Relevant support for your assertions from scholarly sources
6. Relevant support for your assertions from a personal interview and student survey (or two personal interviews)
7. A discussion of possible counterarguments (addressing them accordingly)
8. A clear and specific call to action.

Additionally, your completed policy brief should

• Make use of both images and text in creating a visual/aesthetic argument as well as a textual one
• Include a graph, table, pull quote, or some other graphic representation of your primary research findings (both interviews and/or survey)
• Contain thought-provoking subheadings
• Be followed by a Works Cited page in correct 8th edition MLA format (Links to an external site.)

Select skills:

• Demonstrate a deep and research-based knowledge of your subject
• Express an argument through a clear and thoughtful arrangement of ideas
• Make appropriate use of quotations and in-text citations in MLA format
• Demonstrate a careful arrangement of visual elements
• Exhibit a creative and inventive conception of the policy brief project

Requirements:

• Approximately 1500–2400 words
• Final draft due Sunday of Week 8
• Post a pdf of the final draft to the Canvas Assignments folder