Description
There are two main features to your paper: 1) content, and 2) structure.
As to content, you are the President’s Ambassador to the United Nations. A seat has come open on the UN Human Rights Council. Your job is to advise the President—through this policy brief—which country the United States should recommend to fill that seat and why. Most likely, each country’s background on things like human rights adoption/enforcement/promotion will comprise your content.
Read the (UNC) Writing Center’s Policy Brief document for instructions on writing an effective policy brief (use the link in your syllabus). As you will see, a policy brief is somewhat different from the papers you may have written for other classes.
A few key points about policy briefs:
Policy briefs give objective summaries of relevant research, suggest possible policy options, and argue for particular courses of action.
Policy briefs are distinctive in their focus on communicating the practical implications of research to a specific audience.
Your policy brief will deploy research findings for a very specific purpose: to help readers decide what they should do.
That document also suggests what your brief’s structure should look like:
Context/Scope of the Problem
Policy Alternatives
Policy Recommendations
(Optional: If you want to include one or more Appendices, reference them in your text but place them at the end of your paper).
Consulted Sources: This is your APA format reference section, which starts on a fresh page.
A real policy paper would not be filled with citations, but this is an academic exercise. Cite all your sources in the body of your text in standard APA format.
Include an APA reference section, starting on a fresh page, at the end of your paper. Your reference section will capture many or all of the sources you used in your Annotated Bibliography, but it will not include the explanatory text you developed for your AB.
Neither your title page nor your reference section will count toward your 6-8 pages of content (1750-2500 words).