DPI-820M C: Policy Writing for Decision Makers

Semester: Spr Mod4

Credit: 0.5

Faculty: Sushma Raman

Schedule

Day Time Location
First Day
Meet Day TBD
Review

Description

This six-week course helps turn you into a strong policy writer -- someone who writes with the ease, confidence, clarity, and modes of persuasion necessary to professional policymaking. Newer policy writers will learn the styles and genres of policy writing, including proposals, position papers, and briefing books, and gain mastery over the short memo style required for most HKS courses. Returning policy writers will find the course a beneficial refresher to the policy writing skills necessary to success in high-level policymaking careers. The course presents writing assignments through the lens of case studies that replicate problems you may face as a policy writer and decision maker, with attention to the research methods, modes of analysis, persuasive arguments, recommendations, refutations, and graphic support that turn research and advocacy into action. It will also teach you the strategies, techniques, and production habits of highly skilled writers, and provide an intimate, rigorous, and immersive environment in which to internalize them. The fall modules are especially relevant to newer policy writers who are less familiar with the structure, research methods, and goals of standard policy memos. DPI-820MC invites students to work on their own policy issues, rather than on the case studies. The class can be taken alone or together with other writing courses in the DPI series.