Description

Step 1

General instructions
For the policy brief, you can choose a public problem of interest. Note that a ‘policy problem’ is different than a ‘policy domain’ as we will learn in this class. A policy domain can be ‘immigration’, ‘health care, or ‘gun control’. Within each policy domain, there are multiple problems that you might be interested in. For instance, within immigration, you might be interested in the creation of pathways for citizenship for DACA OR the separation of families at the border OR an amnesty for illegal residents OR a reform of green card process. Within health care, you might be interested in the illegal sale of opioids OR resistance to vaccination OR access to health care for individuals without insurance. Within gun control, you can focus on mass shootings OR suicide prevention OR accidental deaths. These are different problems and you have to pick one.

Step 2

Policy brief – Part #1
In Phase 1, you will develop an annotated bibliography of at least 8 sources of information that discuss in-depth the problem you are interested in. The scope of an annotated bibliography is to have a list of high-quality sources that provide you information on your topic.
High-quality sources include major national newspapers, think tank reports, policy briefs, peer-reviewed publications, government briefs, and so on. You will be evaluated based on the quality of the source you selected and the comprehensiveness of your bibliography. Make sure to include at least one government brief and one think tank report OR policy brief.
For each source, you will provide the full bibliographic annotation (you can use whatever format you like) and five sentences summarizing the key argument of the source (What is the central argument of the author? What are the key information provided? What evidence is discussed? What is the conclusion?).
At the end of the annotated bibliography, you should feel you have a good understanding of the problem, the actors involved, and the solutions that are currently discussed. You shouldn’t just summarize the first 8 articles you find. Spending some time in selecting high-quality sources is important for developing a good policy brief.
Update: At the end of your annotated bibliography, you should write your problem statement. This is a short paragraph that explains what public problem you are addressing and why it is a public problem (e.g., Who is affected? What happens if we don’t solve the problem? ). Review slides on BB for more details on how to write a good problem statement.