Note that you are writing to your local government so be mindful of what policies are within their scope. Also, government officials are extremely busy individuals so your brief should be clear, succinct, and specific.
The goals of your policy briefs are (1) to summarize the reasons that action is necessary (scientific background, expected/current impacts, ethical and economic considerations) and (2) to propose a specific policy action (identify the action, state why this action, and explain how to implement).
Requirements:
1.The polcy brief should be 1,000 – 1,500 words, excluding references.
2. The brief should be single spaced, Arial, 12pt font, 1″ margins.
3. Only include figures if necessary, but you will not receive extra marks for them.
4. At least 3 peer-reviewed sources
5. Use APA as the reference style and in-text citations.
What you don’t have to do:
1.A cover page.
2.The “goal” section, as shown on the Ontario housing policy brief; it will just take up your word count.
3.Fancy headers: they just need to be identifiable as headers, so perhaps bold and/or underline them and/or make them a font size larger than your paragraphs.
Ideal sections:
1.Executive summary
2.Scientific background, expected/current impacts, ethical and economic considerations (if relevant) (These may be in several paragraphs.)
3.Propose policy action (These may be in several paragraphs.)
4.Conclusion
