How to Write a Policy Brief

Framing Your Issue

Identify your audience. Policy briefs typically aren't read by experts in the field. Rather, your audience is likely people with a higher-than-average understanding of the topic who want to understand the effects a particular policy might have. For example, if you're writing for a nonprofit organization, your audience may be supporters of your organization. On the other hand, your audience may be government officials who are potentially antagonistic to your message. If you're writing your policy brief for a class assignment, ask your instructor to identify the audience for the policy brief, if this information isn't included in the information about the assignment.

Create a working thesis statement. As with any research paper, your thesis statement will organize your writing. As short as a policy brief is, every paragraph should relate in some way to your thesis statement. Because of their nature, policy briefs typically don't include a lot of background information. Your thesis statement should be related to a present issue or situation. For advocacy briefs, your thesis statement will present a way to resolve the issue the brief discusses. The thesis statement for an objective brief will present the issue itself and describe the motivation for differing approaches to addressing the issue.

Find the information you need to support your thesis. Policy briefs are well-researched and well planned out. Every fact you mention in your brief should be supported by a reliable reference. Use reliable sources, preferably objective academic studies or government data and statistics. These will make your policy brief more reliable. Make sure the data and information you find is directly related to your thesis. With only a few hundred words, you don't have a lot of space to go into detail about studies in the field.

Write a working draft based on your thesis statement. A draft of your policy brief gives you something to work with in later stages of the writing process. At this point, don't worry too much about structure. You'll fit your draft into a neat frame later. Don't worry about length at this stage either. Write what you think you need to include. It's easier to remove pieces than it is to add.

Use a reverse outline to focus your draft. Once you have your working draft, go through it and make a note of the main point of each paragraph. Use your notes to create an outline, adjusting focus where necessary. With an outline, it will be easier to identify paragraphs that don't fit with the rest of your brief. Take a look at your reverse outline and move paragraphs around as necessary. Your narrative should flow logically from one paragraph to the next. Use transitions where necessary to make your brief a cohesive unit, rather than simply a collection of paragraphs or sections.Tip: If you're having a hard time focusing your draft, talk to some whose opinion you respect. It doesn't matter if they know anything about your topic or not – you're just looking for a way to focus your writing on the point you want to make.

Building Your Structure

Write a summary statement to lead off your brief. The summary statement will appear on the cover of your brief, or on the top of the first page if you don't have a cover. Use it to summarize your thesis statement and the position you take in your brief. For example, suppose you're writing a brief on voluntary euthanasia, and taking the position that it should be legal. For your summary statement, you might write: "People who are terminally ill want to die in a way that preserves their dignity and respects their autonomy. Voluntary euthanasia provides the opportunity for them to control their death."

Explain why the issue is important to your readers. Use the introduction of your brief to let your readers know why they should care about the issue. Keep your audience in mind, especially if you're writing to an antagonistic audience. For example, suppose you're writing a brief on voluntary euthanasia that will be distributed to lawmakers who are against legalizing the practice. For your introduction, you might write: "All humans deserve to die with dignity. For people with terminal illnesses, this is only possible if assisted euthanasia becomes legal. Support for this is support for someone's autonomy in their final moments."

Create section headings for your main sections. Section headings break up the text and allow your readers to skim the brief and read the sections that are of interest to them. Use brief, active phrases of 2 or 3 words that accurately summarize the content of the section. For example, if you're writing a policy brief on voluntary euthanasia, you may have section headings such as "Respecting Autonomy," "Preserving Dignity," and "Controlling Costs." For a policy brief, section headings allow for multiple points of entry. Rather than reading from beginning to end, your reader can focus on things they're interested in first.

Close with a summary and call to action. Particularly for advocacy briefs, you want to encourage your readers to take action to support the solution you've proposed. Summarize what your readers have learned from the information you've provided in your brief, then encourage them to take action. Pay attention to your audience here. For example, if you're writing a policy brief on voluntary euthanasia that will be distributed to government officials, you might encourage them to write or promote legislation to legalize voluntary euthanasia. On the other hand, if your readers were voters, you would want them to vote for representatives who supported legalizing voluntary euthanasia.Tip: Word processing apps have templates you can use to streamline your policy brief. These templates will ensure your design is visually pleasing, clean, and uncluttered.

Writing Effectively

Focus on results and conclusions rather than methods. With the relatively short length of a policy brief, you don't have the space to go into the methodology used in studies. Instead of including details about raw data, highlight the conclusions of studies or statistics you use. Use phrases such as "a study found" or "statistics reveal" to introduce conclusions. Include your sources at the end of your brief. Your readers can look up the actual studies if they want to understand more about the methodology.

Use clear and simple language. The best policy briefs use active language and layperson's terms to convey their points. Keep your sentences relatively short, and communicate key concepts using words anyone would understand. Avoid technical terminology wherever possible. If it is unavoidable, provide a brief description or definition after the word or phrase.

Add graphics and images to make your brief easy to skim. Graphs, charts, and tables make your brief more palatable for your readers. These figures allow your readers to understand the point of your policy brief at a glance, without necessarily reading the text. Any figures should relate explicitly to your thesis statement. Imagine that someone who'd read nothing but the title and subject headings could understand your brief from the figures alone.

Relate your findings to the world at large. A policy brief is only valuable if it has relevance on a broader scale. Demonstrate how the issue you discuss in your brief has broader implications that potentially intersect with other areas or impact other issues. For example, if you're writing a policy brief about assisted euthanasia, you might mention that terminally ill patients leave behind massive medical bills that could be controlled if assisted euthanasia were an option.

Proofread the finished brief carefully. Read your brief forwards and backward to proofread, looking for spelling and grammatical errors. You might also read your brief aloud. Any passages you stumble over could potentially be edited to read more smoothly. A policy brief is short by its nature, which means any errors will stand out. Spelling and grammatical errors will make your brief far less reliable.Tip: There are apps you can download for free that will help you with proofreading. Grammarly will help you with proofreading active voice. The Hemingway app will also help you with active voice and allows you to customize your feedback based on a specific reading level.