How to Write a Policy Brief

We can see them all right. Let me just pull the chat over here. Okay, okay. Hi everyone, thank you for joining us today. I know there's lots of people in different time zones, so um, good morning or good night or good afternoon. Uh, Elena and I today are going to be walking through how to write a policy brief. So this is going to kind of touch on all the parts of, you know, what is a policy brief, why is it important to think about one, how do you actually write it, and then what can you do with it? Like what can you influence with a policy brief? Um, and we've tried to make this pretty standard across the board, considering a lot of us are in different fields. We're scientists as well, so this is not going to be like very heavily focused on technical policy, so don't worry if you're worried about that. So oops, there. Okay.

So a little bit about us before we get started. We're both graduate students at the University of Michigan, and we're also part of the science, technology, and public policy certificate program. Uh, my name is Kelsey. I'm a fifth-year PhD candidate in Pharmacology, and I'm currently working on developing alternative pain methods to combat the opioid epidemic. And I'll let Elena um introduce herself.

Hi everyone, my name is Elena. I'm a fourth-year uh PhD candidate in the Immunology program, and I currently am studying the underlying factors that drive diabetes onset.

Thanks, Elena. Um, so you may be wondering, with the fields that we're in, um, why we're talking to you about writing a policy brief, and you know, where expertise comes from. So we uh, like Chelsea mentioned, we're part of um the National Science policy Network, which you'll hear a little bit about early or later. Um, so recently, in the 2022 um competition, we took second place. I included the link to this article um that we won for our policy brief uh in my bio, I believe on Hua, um if you have that open, maybe while we're talking through it might be easy to kind of follow all the steps. Um, but yeah, we won second place. We went through this whole process together and learned how to write one, um how to make it effective and look nice, and then now we're going to share that information with you today.

So our goals today, uh before we get started, I just want to kind of point out the big takeaways that you should have. So at the end of this talk, you should be able to look back and think about, you know, what we talked about in each one of these points. So the first one we want to talk about um what is the purpose of writing a policy brief? Like why would you even go down this avenue, especially as a scientist? Um, you know, what are the essential elements of a policy brief, and how do you actually construct an effective one? And then we're going to give you some tips to effectively communicate your science or the issue that you're trying to convey to both public and policy audiences, especially if it's science. This technical um jargon may not translate well to other communities, so kind of giving you tips to be mindful about that throughout your process. And then finally, we want to um kind of convey how your policy brief can influence policymakers, and obviously this will be dependent on where you're at, you know, what your political structure system is like, um, you know, what are the political ideologies that you're trying to influence, um, and we can kind of touch on that as we go forward.

To start, I kind of just want to touch on what a policy brief actually is, because this is not something that I had ever personally written um before I started graduate school. So essentially, it's a tool for sharing your research and your policy recommendations to a non-specialized audience. Um, you're going to clearly connect the policy concerns or the issue that you're trying to um convey with potential solutions, and this is going to be backed by evidence, and we'll talk about that when we get to some certain sections. Uh, it's going to be visually appealing, short, and easy to read for all audiences. And while this seems like this may be the easiest bullet point on the slide, this is actually one of the hardest things that people have to adapt to when they come from a field outside of policy. I know I definitely did. Um, you know, as scientists, we tend to flourish and uh embellish in our uh, you know, actual technical fields, and sometimes our manuscripts might be hard to read for anybody who's not doing the specific niche work that we're doing. So this kind of has to transcend all of that, and all of the information that you're going to convey needs to be able to be read by a whole plethora of audiences. And then ultimately, it's going to be informative and then focused on a particular issue.

So that sounds, when we give, you know, this brief overview, it sounds like it's hard to identify how different that's going to be from potentially an op-ed or um just a general essay, or if you're writing or doing an interview for any sort of media outlet. Um, and I've had questions in the past on this before and like, you know, what makes this actually different. So in general, policy briefs tend to be shorter. Um, when you think of the audience that you're trying to convey to, specifically policymakers, they have very limited time and resources, and they're probably going to read just like the very um the big like pitch that you're putting up upfront. So you're going to always have page limits on these, on two to three pages; three pages at the max, two pages sometimes the max. So the shorter the better, um which is hard to do, especially if you're talking about a very extensive um technical and complex issue. So simple language is always best, whereas with essays or academic works, you might want to use sophisticated language and sound, you know, professional, professional quote-unquote. Um, it'll be structured, and you'll see this if you follow the the link that I provided. Um, so this will include headers, bullet points, subheaders that will help guide your audience through your actual work, and then you'll use like bold, underline, and italics to be able to emphasize specific points, whereas that that may necessarily not be true depending on, you know, what what other communication you might be doing. Um, this is going to include visuals and charts, and not necessarily the same way that a manuscript would um provide like figures, for example. This is going to have to be visually appealing to grab the attention of your reader, um and then while also conveying information with a purpose. Uh, this also typically uses the first person, I or we, because you, me, we, we are suggesting and recommending a specific actionable item, um and it comes with more weight when you establish your expertise, you talk about the background evidence that you're suggesting, you talk about potential solutions, and then you're putting forth stake and investment into the issue and concern, um so that relates much better to public community members as well as to policymakers that you're trying to talk to. Um, and this is, you know, you can see the other column, this is all very different from what you would see with other types of writing.

So the main purpose of a policy brief is just to inform your audience of a particular issue, suggest possible solutions, and make policy recommendations. And that sounds like I'm um maybe diminishing how hard that actually is with three bullet points, but you should be able to touch on these questions that are underneath. So, you know, what is your problem? Why should people care about it? How can you validate your claim with evidence? So if I say this is an issue, you need to back up why it's an issue and how it's demonstrated as an issue, and that will um, you know, add more weight to what you're saying for your audience. You know, it makes it more believable; you're establishing your credibility and your authority in the field. So with your possible solutions, you need to kind of touch on what are the possible solutions, are they actually feasible, um what are the current uh what are the current um status quo that's present, and then why is that no longer working? And then you're going to make your policy recommendations and talk about how those solutions can actually be implemented. It sounds much easier when you see it on one slide than it actually is.

The elements of a policy brief um can be broken down into four main sections, and then I have a supplemental here as well. So the very first section will always be an executive summary. So this is a 30-second summary to your brief. So if you are doing, for example, a poster presentation at a symposium and someone comes up and says, give me the 30-second or 5-minute elevator pitch um without giving them the whole presentation, this is essentially the same thing. It sets the tone for your entire brief. It talks about what you're going to say, what you're going to recommend, and what the issue is, um not necessarily in that order, but the reader should be able to read the executive summary, and it should be able to stand alone. Um, and then, you know, you can expand and elaborate on specific details throughout the rest of your brief. In most cases, you'll see policymakers and their offices will primarily look at the executive summary, and that sounds not so great considering how much work you put into the brief and everything, but they'll make a decision based on the executive summary if they want to continue reading it or not. Um, so that needs to be done very well, and that should be, you know, a huge focus when you're writing um your policy brief.

Background information is pretty much present in every uh every written communication piece that you'll encounter. You need to set the tone and kind of describe the context of why this is an issue or, you know, what's going on, what historically has happened that has led us to the specific spot. Um, so that'll be, you know, what is the status quo and why is that no longer effective? Number three, for policy options, you know, what are the potential alternatives that could solve the issue that you're presenting? And you can kind of elaborate on, you know, I have three potential options here, these are the pros and cons of each, and then ultimately in number four, you'll choose one and say this is what our recommendation is and provide a conclusion. So which of the options that you offered is best and why? And then are there any limitations to your recommendation? It will always look better if you consider what are the potential pitfalls of your issue, bring them up upfront, and then also talk about how you could combat those potential pitfalls. And that may not be immediate, that may not be um built into current policy structures, but the fact that you're aware of it and the fact that you've thought of something to address it already puts a lot of weight behind, you know, what you're conveying and what your recommendation actually is. And then, of course, I've mentioned this previously, but your figures and your secondary analysis are going to be the visual representation of your words and then have to aid to the overall goal of the brief. So just putting in pictures without an actual purpose doesn't provide anything extra and can actually take away from the point that you're making because it won't make sense and it won't feel like it's a cohesive actual piece.

Before I get into um, you know, go diving into each of these sections, there's a couple things that are really important before you get started actually writing and structuring your brief. So number one is choosing a topic. So this is actually extremely difficult, and for um Elena and I's group, we actually just picked a couple topics that we were all passionate about, and then um voted on which one we thought was the best, and it turned out that our topic became extremely timely considering when we submitted it, the Supreme Court leak happened um with re the reversal of Roe uh kind of being put on the table. So uh with those of you who don't know, you can go look at our brief, um and we can kind of we kind of touch on the history of that actual legislation um and the the uh court case. So choosing a timely topic is really important, um whether it's intentional or not, like in our case. So is this issue relevant to current events? So is it actually talked about? If it's talked about and the public cares about it and it's potentially already under debate, um this is more likely to be seen, and it'll actually have a significant impact. Um, and also it's more likely for your solutions to be taken seriously if solutions are already on the table, alternatives are on the table, things are under attack, depending on what um your actual topic or field are. So does the public care about this topic? And the big one here is is policy change on this issue favorable? Because if you are suggesting something that people do not want changed, the policymakers don't have any incentive to actually change it, unless you make a really great wonderful argument where you're going to make things better that people just don't know about yet. Obviously, there's going to be exceptions to each of these pieces, but um it's more likely that you're going to see uh favorable policy change kind of gain traction with policy briefs. And then the effectiveness is definitely dependent on how many people see your brief. If no one sees your brief, obviously it's not going to have an impact. So you're going to want to think about how you're actually disseminating your information, and then um is this issue heavily debated or politicized? So this influences the audience, the language, and the goal of your brief. So are you only talking to one specific community, uh one specific political ideology? Is that actually going to be effective in inducing policy change? Are you going to need to kind of reach across the aisle with um your words and with your brief and kind of talk about the invested interests of multiple parties at once? If you're talking about politics, essentially um it's very hard to separate policy and politics, especially in the US. Um this may be dependent on where you're located and what the political structure is like in your country, but in the US this is definitely a very important aspect to think about, and I think this can also be translated to other places as well.

So um you're identifying policy options. You know, I mentioned this may sound very easy when we're just going through um the the bullet points, but this is definitely difficult to think about because you have to think about what is the structure that exists, are you going to have to overhaul everything completely, or are you just adding in minor changes? You know, what's going to be favorable, what's going to be feasible. Um, so the big questions that you want to ask here are why, why is change needed? What will the impact of your policy be? How feasible is your recommendation? If you're asking for something that is going to require $30 billion in change, probably unlikely that it's going to happen right away, right? So you have to be a bit crafty and maybe utilize something that already exists in a different way, and um, you know, as a pharmacologist, that's something that we already think about with drugs, for example, repurposing things that already exist for another um issue. And you know, why will your recommendations be effective is obviously important as well, and you can't necessarily just suggest a specific recommendation without talking about why it would actually work or why why this will be effective in the long run or even the short run. Um, and obviously bold and underlined here, have an actionable ask. This is important. Um, an actionable ask just means that it needs to be something tangible that a policymaker can actually implement. So you have to ask for something that can be done and can be addressed. Um, sometimes you'll see that we have some examples later on which we'll see that this can be a little bit vague. Um, sometimes just saying like this is an important issue, I want you to focus on it, isn't enough. You need to say this is an important issue, you need to take out this statute and this policy because it's affecting people in this way. Um, I know that's vague, but obviously this is going to depend on the context and the field that you're in.

So now we can get into the actual structure of the piece, and I've included here um the executive summary from our brief that Elena has posted the link to in the chat. So if you want to kind of follow along here, you can definitely see the structure. Um, so this is, like I said before, setting the tone; it's your 30-second pitch of the entire brief. So policymakers often only read this section, and some of the things to include here are, you know, what are the issue or what's the issue, why is a status quo no longer effective, and that's briefly because you have a background section coming up next, and what is your overall recommendation? And this uh tip from us is to write this last and ensure it gives a cohesive summary of the entire brief. Um, for example, if you're writing a manuscript and you're still running experiments at the same time, but you write your introduction first, your results change and your interpretation change later on down the road, but you don't go back to edit your introduction, that will feel very disjointed and like the two don't actually connect. It's the same exact thing for this policy piece here. So if we read ours, um let me see if I can oh I don't think I can do um laser pointer on Google Slides anyway. Um, so you can see we have a definition for something that we're going to talk about in the in the background um that's bolded because you'll see this throughout the entire brief. Um, we talk about what it is and how it's harming people, we're talking about what we want to do to combat that with our recommendation, and then we talk about what model we're going to use. Um, so it's very short, you can see it's only what two sentences, um written pretty clearly, uh written concisely to get all of that information into two sentences. You see that and you say I know exactly what I'm going to be reading next, and maybe I could just be bragging a bit because it's our own brief, but okay.

So your executive summary leads into your background for the issue. So this is often the easiest section to write, but you can see that some people will tend to write a lot in this section, and you can get really bogged down with details, especially for example, our brief was on combating abortion barriers. Abortion has a very long history in the US, especially. So when we're going through our background, when we first wrote it, I think we were like, you know, back in the 1800s, which obviously that's not going to be relevant to what our policy is now. So we had to really condense what we were actually going back and looking into in terms of the history and what was important and what was relevant enough to put in. So you'll notice that here you'll have to cut out a lot more, and asking yourself what's relevant and what's important will be a lot a lot different than what, you know, you would normally do. So provide only information that's critical for your audience to understand the policy options that you're going to provide. So why is change necessary? You need to give the context to be able to answer that question. What does your audience need to know in order to understand the issue and your recommendations? So what do they need to know in terms of being able to follow what you're saying? Because if what your recommendations and what your policy options are suggesting, if you didn't give enough context to be able to follow what those mean and what they will do and the impact that they'll have, then you need to tell people that. And how can you frame the problem in a way that's specific to your audience? So this is also important when you consider the politics of the issue as well. Like obviously with our brief, abortion is heavily debated and heavily politicized in the US. So in order to um kind of consider how like how wide we wanted our reach to go, we had to think about the language that we were using; we had to think about um maybe politicized language that can be included to talk about either side of a debate and had to leave it completely neutral. Um, and I think that benefited us in a way in where, you know, we can talk about this is an issue, this is how we can address the issue without saying, you know, this side is wrong, this side is right. And ultimately, I think more people will read our information and kind of digest that information more because of that. Um, and then obviously you'll see, you know, you include headers to organize and guide readers to the point that you're trying to make. So with your header, you'll see with ours we might have like summary, background, and then when you get to the policy options sections, we have them split in terms of like what they're actually saying. So instead of saying like topic one and then content and then topic two content, we use our headers to kind of guide where we're going next. So instead of maybe typing a transition statement between paragraphs, you can use your headers to do that as well, and it can make things a lot shorter too, more concise.

Okay, and then suggesting potential alternatives. So this is, you know, you've identified what your policy options are, and then now you're going to write that section. So you're going to outline multiple options to solve the overall problem. So usually this is two to three. Um, sometimes if you if you kind of suggest every single one that you've ever thought of, you'll get really bogged down in details, and it'll just be a wall of text that will be hard to follow, and I think you might lose your argument a bit through that. Um, this needs to be supported by research and statistics. So you'd be surprised um how far statistics, with combination anecdotal evidence and maybe stories that you include, can go. Um, you need quantitative data with qualitative data. Um, that combination works really well in policy because it kind of brings drives home the point that what you're doing is targeting people and their experiences and their lives. Um, but having, you know, numbers and statistics will always provide evidence for, you know, what you're actually arguing. So having both is always always a good a good uh strategy. Um, you're going to discuss the implementation of this option. So what is the funding like? Um, is this going to require a massive amount of funding, which will impact the feasibility of your overall um recommendation? But if you're talking about a specific policy alternative that you're not going to recommend, you can say it's because, you know, this may cost too much or um, you know, with the delivery, the implementation and how it's actually going to be provided to um the community and the public is going to be way too hard with the existing structure that we have, and it would probably take, you know, 20-30 years to actually measure any benefit when we need change right now. That could be a potential caveat. Um, and then talk about, you know, the potential support and opposition for ideas. You know, what is what's the argument against this this uh alternative? What's the argument for this alternative? Addressing both is just very cohesive and just really demonstrates that you have an understanding understanding understanding and an investment of this idea. And then obviously the feasibility plays into all of those points. So you'll estimate the impact of your proposal, um and you can kind of talk about how you can measure this going forward, and this is something that's very difficult to do. So this is not, you know, you know, you shouldn't worry about this being perfect, and developing a model for measuring the effectiveness of your proposal. Um, but you can talk about what are the things that you consider in terms of like what does success mean, what does impact mean? Um, and that can include, you know, economic, political, and public health benefit, um, you know, environmental benefit, uh it just really depends on the field and the context of what you're talking about. Um, and then finally, with the the conclusion and the recommendation, so you'll select one on one of your proposed policy alternatives to recommend, and then you kind of describe, you know, why is this option the best, and is implementing this option actually feasible? What are the limitations of this recommendation? And then when you think further ahead, how do you actually measure?

Success for the policy recommendation, and this is, you know, what I was just talking about before. Um, you can kind of do that for all of your Alternatives, um, or you can just do that for your recommendation, depending on, um, how far you want to go and how much you want to elaborate on all of your options. You can definitely take some liberties with these sections, but this is just meant to be a basic guideline, basic structure for you to build on going forward. Okay, so then Elena, go ahead. I will mute myself.

Okay, so, um, I'm gonna take over at this point from Kelsey. Thanks, Kelsey, for uh doing the beginning part. So, um, now that Kelsey has walked us through the framework of a policy brief and kind of what components are needed when actually writing, I'm going to give some tips about making your brief both more visually appealing as well as understandable, as understandable as possible. So that your audience, again, has an easier time reading it, which is kind of your goal. You want more people to read it, and if it's easier to read, then more people will read it.

So first, here it's really important to include visuals whenever possible. I know Kelsey mentioned this before, but um, oftentimes if someone is reading your brief and they have a really limited amount of time, they'll first read your executive summary, but then if they have some extra time to skim the rest of your document in a hurry, their eyes will kind of typically focus on the visuals. I know personally that I'm a visual learner and I usually zero in immediately on visuals, um, and that's kind of what I remember the most about a paper. So if you utilize visuals, it's a really crucial skill to enhance your brief as well as make it have a more lasting and memorable impact. And so these visuals can have a wide variety of, um, they can just be a wide variety of things.

So one recommendation that I have is representing some of your background statistics as a figure rather than words, like Kelsey was talking about. Your background can be really heavy with details and everything, so if you use visuals a lot of time to represent this data, it can be a little bit less dense. Um, so since this is a Global Alliance meeting, if in your background you want to have a representation of how different countries compare on a specific issue, it can be effective to represent this as a visual rather than make a list of countries that have passed a specific law or have stricter regulations on a specific topic. Again, I'm using big language here because it depends on what your topic will be, but, um, just an example of this, I've included here on the right a visual from Kelsey's and my policy brief. And so like Kelsey talked about and like the, you can click on the link in the chat, we wrote about abortion access specifically in the United States, and we wanted to show that the abortion restrictions vary from state to state, and then we wanted to Target our recommendations to states with the harshest restrictions. So rather than list out Texas, Louisiana, Virginia, all these different states that have harsh restrictions, one of our groupmates actually made a figure on the right here that visually represents which states have harsher restrictions using a color gradient scale. And so I think this was a really effective way, instead of making a list or using words, to show, um, where our uh recommendations would be effective.

And so some other visual types include bar graphs, pie charts, or just illustrations that summarize some of the um key points. You can use like a flowchart as well, um, and these can be really useful and ensure that the point that you're making is really driven home and can emphasize what you're saying. And so it's also really important to make sure that all of your visuals look like they go together. So if you want to include a picture or a graph, making them follow a similar color scheme or making them cohesive to tie them together makes your brief look a lot more polished, and when it looks more polished, people are more likely to read it because it looks like you put the time and work into it. So one thing, um, to to make that uh possible is that uh when possible, I would recommend that you make your own figures, um, so so the design is within your control because if you're the one making the figures, you can make them all the same color scheme. Um, obviously that's not always possible if you're, you know, using a picture from the news or or Google or something, but when possible, I think making your own figures is great.

And then finally, an important thing to keep in mind is accessibility. So just make sure that your images are visible to colorblind individuals. So probably try and avoid like a red-green color scheme since that's difficult for colorblind individuals to see. Um, make sure the font is large enough so that people aren't squinting to see it because that could really deter people from reading it if they're, um, if they're vision impaired. And then don't use cursive or hard-to-read fonts because the harder you make it for people to see, the less likely they are to read it. And so then just to be able to go ahead and make your visuals, there's some programs that you can use, um, such as Canva and BioRender. Both of these are free, um, you can use these to design your figures. I uh use BioRender quite a bit for my science, and then we use Canva specifically before our brief, um, and although, um, Illustrator and Photoshop are not free, many institutions do offer free access for graduate students, so that's something that I would check out if you're a graduate student. Um, but these tools are very useful for designing visuals.

So next, to make sure that you use accessible communication in your brief, one thing that's important, excuse me, um, one thing that's important is to never assume that your reader knows anything about your topic. So Kelsey talked about this before, but just avoid using jargon or complicated vocabulary that's specific to the topic that you're writing about. So a lot of times it's not possible to avoid using complicated language because, you know, it's really essential to your point, but if you are going to use complicated language, kind of like what we did, we used, um, hostile abortion environments, just make sure to define exactly what it is the first time that you're introducing it, um, and just try and make it as simple as possible. And again, um, I talked about this in the last slide, but a picture can really help your audience understand things better. So a lot of times, use pictures whenever possible when you're describing complicated things because it can really simplify it. And, um, Kelsey talked about this before too, one way a policy brief differs from academic writing is how concise and short your sentences are. So when you're writing an academic paper, you often use longer sentences, but in a policy brief, you have a short word limit, and um, concise sentences are preferred to help you make sure that you can fit that word limit. And so you want to make sure that every word that you're using has a purpose, and you can cut out transition words like additionally, moreover, etc., that, um, you're really taught to use in academic writing. And, um, not only to fit word limits, but writing short, concise sentences is also really helpful for helping people to understand what you're saying because a short sentence gets right to the point without adding in these extra fluff words. It can really help readers just read a short sentence and say, okay, that's exactly the point that I'm trying to make. Then you have, you can avoid all that extra fancy words that aren't really adding anything to what you're saying.

And so finally, this was mentioned before, but, um, you can use italics, bolds, and underline as tools to emphasize your main points and guide the focus of your audience to your main point. So oftentimes your recommendation will be bold since that's a very important part of your brief, and it will draw the your audience's attention right to what your recommendation is, or you can underline or italicize the reasons that a change is needed in a specific policy area to try and convince a policy maker to take action. And so again, using these tools, um, not only, um, not only is good for, um, like making it look polished, but it also is a really good tool to draw the attention of your readers and really help guide them towards what points you're trying to make and make sure that everyone is understanding exactly why you wrote this policy brief.

Um, and so there are some resources that we recommend for improving your writing. So I think uh Grammarly is a really good tool for editing for clarity and conciseness. So I think that it's always a really good tool to use, but I think even more important the second point, um, I like to ask a really wide variety of people to read and edit my briefs. I know we did this, Kelsey and I did this, um, as well as there were five of us, so we each had other people read it, and we had, um, some academic tutors at Michigan, look at, or University of Michigan, sorry, look at it as well, um, but I think it's really good to get a wide variety of people to read it because if you ask someone who is less familiar with your topic, it's really, really good to gauge whether you use simple enough language for them to understand your topic. So if I ask my my mother who doesn't do any science or policy work, did you understand what I'm writing, and she says yes, then you did a good great job, but if she's she comes out of it confused, um, that means that you really need to work on, um, you know, simplifying the language and making it more, um, accessible. Um, and so I think that's really good too because, like we said before, you should never assume that anyone knows anything about your topic, even legislators. So if you make it as simple as possible that someone who's not familiar with your research or your research or what policy you're recommending can understand, then that's a really good tool. Um, so in my opinion, the more people you ask, the better.

And so finally, um, the NSSN, I guess I didn't write out what that is, that's the National Science Policy Network, that's what uh Kelsey and I submitted our policy brief through, um, they have workshops and certificate programs dedicated to helping you improve your science policy writing. Kelsey and I both took one last year, and I think, um, it was pretty helpful for us to take before writing our brief because there were, um, there were sessions on how to write clearer, how to write shorter, and a variety of things, how to really, um, focus it on your on your topic. So I think that was a really helpful tool. So if you're considering writing a policy brief, definitely check out NSSN's, um, their events as well as their workshops and their resources.

So the ultimate goal of your policy brief is to convince policy makers to take your recommendation and then try and enact change. So some things to consider when you're writing your brief includes some of the following questions. So first, who do you want to see your message? Is it a specific policy maker in a specific state, or did you write a more general brief that can be applied to states with similar structures or political affiliations? So for ours, we were writing not for all states, but for states that had harsher abortion restrictions, um, so that's really important to keep in mind who your audiences. You might write it differently if you're writing, um, about a federal change or something you want changed at the federal level, whereas, um, you might you would write it different if it's locally. So if I'm writing about a local issue that I want specific to Michigan, the background that I would give as as well as how I would frame the issue would be very different than something at the federal level or even at the global level, that would change how I write about things very specifically.

And so then once your brief is actually written, when thinking about how to get your brief seen and share it, social media I think is a really important tool, um, especially it's getting more and more popular, more policy makers are on social media now, whether it's LinkedIn or Facebook or, um, even TikTok. Um, I know Gretchen Whitmer has a TikTok to appeal to her Gen Z audience. So really utilizing social media to spread your word farther, I think that's a really crucial tool, tool. Um, and so when considering who you want to see it, thinking about where to put it is a big consideration, or put your brief. So we published ours through the NSSN writing competition to a website called Medium, but we also tweeted about it, posted on LinkedIn, and we could have taken it even further. We could have started sending emails to policy makers and the specific states that we recommended. So really, um, that's something to keep in mind, um, depending on who your audience is for your brief, that's who you should start to actually send it to.

And so another way to extend it is reaching out, like I said, reaching out directly to policy makers. So obviously this is easier said than done, especially since you oftentimes will deal with staff members rather than the policy makers themselves. It's really hard to get a meeting or get them to actually read something that, um, read something that you write, but again, because you're not exactly sure how many hands it'll pass through before it reaches its target audience, that's why it's really important to emphasize the key key points for those staff members to hopefully pass on to their bosses because each of the staff members will have a different area of expertise and the policy makers. And so making sure that you use the simplest language and making it as accessible as possible is really important to just really hone in on your point.

So next, it can be a really useful tool to partner with coalitions when possible. Big groups with a common shared interest usually have more power than a group of graduate students writing a brief. So for us, writing a brief on abortion access, partnering, if we had partnered with Planned Parenthood or more likely local groups interested in increasing abortion access in the area could be a helpful tool for spreading our recommendations to a wider audience. And so this is also important because these groups oftentimes have connections with policy makers that we as grad students will not have, and they have lobbying power a lot of the time. So partnering with other groups can give more attention to your issue rather than just, you know, sharing it yourself.

And then, um, Kelsey touched on this before, but a really important thing when talking about politics is to try and make your point without using too political of language or isolating one group, EXC excuse me. So obviously we wrote about abortion access, which is a really polarizing topic, so this was a little bit tricky to do, but we tried to reframe from blaming a political party or using inflammatory language that's like Kelsey said, saying one group is white and right and one group is wrong. Um, instead, we try to use as general of language as possible, um, and this is because oftentimes using that kind of language will prevent someone across the aisle or with an opposite viewpoint from reading or listening to what you have to say. Um, so really, if you use the most general and non-political language, um, this will increase the number of people that will actually sit down to read your your, um, brief because if you're saying you're wrong in this policy brief, someone's not going to want to read that, that's, you know, it's it feels too personal. Um, and so even if you're not able to convince a policy maker to act on your topic, so someone across the aisle is reading it, um, and they're not going to take action, you can still educate them on your viewpoint, viewpoint, which is a step in the right direction. So I think just using as, um, trying to avoid political language is a good tool to just get as many people as possible to read it.

Um, and so now like Kelsey alluded to before, we have provided some examples, and so just for the sake of time and, um, also it's kind of hard to share an entire brief over PowerPoint, we're just going to share some executive summaries, um, especially since they're kind of the most important part of the brief, like Kelsey talked about. They're the easiest, shortest part to read, and so, um, we'll show we'll show three examples of executive summaries, and then I have made four questions that I think are really important to consider in order to decide whether or not an executive summary does the job that it's supposed to do. So the first question is, does this executive summary show you what the author will write about in the rest of the brief? So like Kelsey said, they do a good job of giving a really quick 30-second summary of what the rest of the brief will be about. Obviously, you won't see the rest of the brief, but can you imagine what they're about to write about? Um, the second one is, do they briefly touch what the status quo is and why change is needed? Again, we don't want a really long explanation of the status quo because that will be in the background, but you need to at least know why a change is needed and kind of what's going on in that political environment right now. And then the third one, do they have a recommendation, and is their recommendation something actionable? So rather than just saying this is a problem, are they saying how can you fix that problem? That's a really important tool. Um, a policy maker is going to want to know from reading the executive summary, okay, what are you wanting me to do about this issue? And then four, is their executive summary short and concise? And so this is probably the least, um, about this is the least about like what's important, and it more just about is it going on for too long and is it easy to read? Um, so I can go ahead and talk about the first one right now. So I think, um, I'll just read the executive summary out loud, and at this point, um, if anyone would like to participate, we really would encourage participation, but I'm also happy to just, um, Pro answers at this point too, but feel free to unmute, raise your hand, anything. We would love if people participate. So I'll read the first, um, executive, yeah, type answers in any answers in the chat as well too. Thanks, Kelsey. So I'll just read this executive summary, and then we can go through the questions that I provided on the last slide. So this executive summary: In 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported an increase of approximately 48,000 reported cases of respiratory illnesses in the workplace. While Healthcare facilities have established protocols and recommendations to protect workers and patients from COVID-19, other workplaces that were deemed to have essential to be essential have a high risk of infectious disease exposure. These workplaces have workers unprotected due to their lack of employer requirements to establish protective guidelines. Worker protections are missing from the current prevent pandemics act that has been presented to the US Senate. The president or congress should direct the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, to move the OSHA infectious disease standard from long-term actions to a top priority.

So, um, the first question, does this, um, executive summary show what the author will write about in the rest of the brief? Um, if anyone has any opinion on this, I can also just go ahead and share, um, if people would prefer that. Okay, I'll I'll just go ahead. So, um, I personally think that this language is very, very vague. They they put quite a bit of, um, time into the the status quo, but they they kind of just say that something needs to be made a top priority, which is really vague. I'm not really sure exactly what they will be talking about in the rest of the brief. So I think that they could have done a little bit better of a job with, um, being more direct and using more direct language. Um, so next, does the brief, um, yeah, yes and no answers are fine too. So feel free, also I can just talk it through if that's easier. Um, so next, do they briefly touch on what the status quo is and why change is needed? Um, okay, I can go ahead. I think yes, they do do a good job of, uh, touching on the status quo. Um, they say that workers are not protected from COVID-19 in their workplaces, so we need protective guidelines. So I think they did a good job of that. Again, I think they could have made their uh status quo section a little bit shorter, but I think they did a good job of showing why change is needed. And then do they have an actionable recommendation? Kelsey, I think you can go ahead and just show, um, so they have a recommendation, um, but their recommendation that you can see in the last sentence is just to make something a top priority. And so like Kelsey was talking about when she was leading into what your recommendation should be, that's kind of vague because if you tell a policy maker to make something a top priority, what does that mean? Do you want me to pass a bill? Do you want me to get rid of a bill? I'm not really sure exactly what they're trying to get at. And so in this in this brief, they do touch on that later, but it would have been a really useful tool to in the executive summary say exactly what they meant. And the next one is their executive summary short and concise? I think they could have made this a little bit shorter, like I said before, um, it's not too it's not crazy long, but, um, I think they could have made it shorter just to make make it easier to read. And like I said, some of this info here could go in the background. So moving on to the next example, um, this is another executive summary: The dangerous levels of air pollution in Detroit, Michigan, put residents' livelihoods and health at risk. Hospital visits attributed to poor air quality cost Detroit residents $6.5 billion every year, and air pollution disproportionately harms disadvantaged residents who are more likely to live near industrial zones and highways. This pollution also deters visitors and new residents from coming to the city, which hurts the local economy. To improve air quality in downtown Detroit, policy makers need to protect green spaces, create robust zoning buffers, reduce idling, and create truck routes.

So first, does this executive summary show you what the author will write about? Yes, they summarize the problem, and they present present their solution. Um, do they briefly touch on what the status quo is and why it's needed? Yes, pollution harms uh disadvantaged residents, so we need to address it. Do they have a recommendation? Yes, um, so they say that to improve air quality in downtown Detroit, policy makers need to protect green spaces, create robust zoning buffers, reduce idling, and create truck routes. I'd say my own only critique here is that, um, it might be a little bit more effective to pick one or two asks rather than having four. It just makes it a little bit more feasible for a policy maker to address. And then finally, is their executive summary short and concise? Yes, I think they did a really good job of this. And so here's our last example: Personal care products contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals, or EDCs, that we use on our skin and hair every day. Nearly everyone is exposed to one or more of the hundreds of known EDCs, which can lead to negative health effects. Because of differences in lifestyle, Black women tend to use more personal care products that contain EDCs. To reduce EDC exposure through personal care product use and promote Black women's health, policy should focus on developing a comprehensive list of EDCs that are related to poor health outcomes, labeling EDCs in personal care products, banning harmful EDCs, and promoting educational outreach for consumers.

And so does this summary, executive summary show you what the author will write about? Yes, I think they do. They summarize exactly what the problem is, and they present their solution. Do they briefly touch on what the status quo is and why change is needed? Yes, they do that. EDCs cause negative negative health effects, and Black women are exposed to more EDCs, so we need to protect the health of all women, particularly Black women. And do they have a recommendation and is it actionable? Yes, they uh recommend making a comprehensive list of EDCs and labeling them in products as well as banning harmful products. So I think they did a really good job with this. I think this was, um, a little bit of

A more feasible ask than the last one, so I think this was really good. And is their executive summary short and concise? Yes, I think they did a good job with this, so yeah. Those are some three examples. Um, oh sorry, thanks Kelsey. Those are three examples um that I think are good to reference.

I think it's really useful to reference other people's executive summaries too, when you're going to write your own. If you're not exactly sure where to start, it's always useful to use another person's as an example. Um, and so that summarizes our talk really, with some key takeaways. Um, so policy briefs, as Kelsey explained, are a really useful tool for disseminating information and influencing policy. Choosing a topic and audience should be carefully considered. Again, this is really vague language that we're using, but it really depends on what your topic will be. Um, so yeah, when you're choosing your audience, um, it depends on the reach of your topic. Um, and the structure, content, language, and design matter to make your brief as accessible and readable as possible. You really just want to increase the odds that someone will read your brief because you spent so much time making it.

And then finally, policy briefs are an important opportunity to make complex ideas and decisions accessible to the public, influencing potential voters. You have power, so you should go ahead and use it. If you write this, someone will read it, and you can just change how someone thinks about an issue, or hopefully you can influence policy makers to actually um change legislation. So yeah, thank you so much. Um, with that, we welcome any questions. I think I saw one in the chat, got one, um, and they're asking particularly how to choose between reaching as many people as possible versus a very targeted audience with policy briefs.

Um, it's a good question, and I think it, once again, depends on the context and the topic in which you're talking about. But um, in particular policy briefs, the purpose of it is to disseminate information widely and influence um policy change. So it depends on kind of what is the current political landscape and environment, and how can you actually, like, can you actually induce change without reaching a broad audience? Um, and Elena touched on this too, with building coalitions and getting um, you know, more people on your side that have resources that are like-minded. In that case, if you're trying to build a coalition, maybe just reaching a targeted audience would be a good intention, but that might be better suited for different types of policy writing, specifically a policy memo. Policy briefs in general, I, I would think of them as uh kind of spreading your information, conveying your point, communicating recommendations to a wide audience. If you're going to do something a little bit more targeted, maybe rethink what type of writing you want to do. And maybe I can, should I unshare my screen so that we can see everyone, maybe, or I don't know if everyone has their cameras on anyway, but I don't think anyone does, so I don't know how important that is. So we have another uh question in the chat.

So, compared to other writing communications, like scientific writing, is a policy brief more subjective? And if it's very subjective, could you advise on still keeping the brief neutral? Yeah, that's a great question. So I think that it is a little bit more subjective because you are giving your opinion, you know, with um, so I don't know what everyone's background is here, but Kelsey and I are both graduate students in biomIAL sciences, so you you try and stay objective, you try and say this is what the data shows and this could mean that, you know, you never really say um if the if the data is not exactly um like leading to a point, you could, you're never really using definitive language because it's it's kind of bad in science to to um like say things too strongly, I would say, or that's what my PI at least always advises against. But um, in in um policy pref more you're trying to to say that like what I'm suggesting to you is the best decision. It, you're being very much more subjective, you're providing your opinion, and you're saying this is why my opinion is right and this is why it's backed by um this is why it's backed by data and by qu both quantitative and qualitative um and this is why we need to change based on what the status quo is or what is currently the political environment.

So advice on keeping it more neutral, it is kind of hard. Um, I would say that Kelsey, I, and our group first wrote wrote Our brief um and it was a little bit more opinionated and less neutral, and through several rounds of revisions we kind of cut out some of the more political language. So I would say um just try to um like through revisions, if you see anything that seems like it's kind of inflammatory or targeting one um targeting one group, like we at one point wrote something that was saying um like right-wing or um Republican or you know something like that, and we kind of cut it out to say a little bit more like harsher environments or um you know, we we just tried to. Oh yeah, thank you for going back. We didn't, this figure was originally red and blue and yeah, red States recommend or as um primarily like voting Republican states and they all aligned with harsher environments for abortion access. So a piece of advice that we got from one of our edits was that to be more neutral, using a color palette that doesn't represent political ideology um would be better, and overall it kept our brief pretty cohesive. Anyway, yeah, so I think what Kelsey said, that that was just through several rounds of edits, you can just each time get rid of a little bit less of the less neutral language to make it sound more neutral over time. It is really hard since you're giving your opinion to not to not try and say this is why these people need to make this change, you know, you just really need to make an effort to get rid of that language. Yeah.

Um, there's no questions in the chat, no more questions in the chat, but there's one from the Q&A that I want to address address because it's really complex. Um, so someone asked before our talk, how can we effectively incorporate new policies to existing policies? And this is extremely difficult. It's very dependent too, so depending on your topic, are there already existing structures in place that you can Target? And then what parts of the policy are you targeting? Are you targeting the development? Are you targeting the implementation? Are you targeting the regulation? Um, so there there's a lot of different things to consider, but I think in our brief, if you go through the link um that Elena posted first in the chat and it's on Hua too um that we kind of do a good job in using existing structures in a new way to kind of implement um oh, thank you for putting it in again, to kind of implement uh change by like restructuring what already exists. Um, in particular like telehealth is something that people already use, so kind of expanding coverage and access of telehealth in areas like of big cities in these harsher environments um we kind of talk about how we could Implement and that could actually induce change without having to kind of overhaul and restructure the entire like policy that's already existing. Um, it will be harder depending on like how much change is necessary and how much change is feasible, so there's so many moving parts that are that need to be considered, and you know, just answering this question, but it definitely depends on the context, and I think um having as many people as possible read it and kind of talk about their own opinions or their own experiences, if they're outside of the field, if they're in the field, um if they're knowledge on the topic or not, I think would be a really great way to kind of get you know what what's favorable, what could be done, and how we how we can address it with what's existing. It's a good question though. We've still got time for some more. We're happy to answer more. Well, it looks like there are no more questions, and we can give some people some time to transition to the next session if they'd like, but uh if anyone has any questions now is the time to ask it, or you can contact Kelsey and Elena on Hua. So uh thank you so very much for this amazing talk. I learned a lot, and I hope that everyone else did too. Thank you again. Thank you on of guard. Thank you. Yes, thank you so much for inviting us. You're welcome. Have a nice day.