Writing in Public Affairs

Books and Guides

Bardach, E. (2000). A practical guide for policy analysis: The eightfold path to more effective problem solving. Chatham House Publishers.

The Center for an Urban Future. (2002). The big idea: A step by step guide to creating effective policy reports. City Limits Community Information Service, Inc.

Dunn, W. (2007). Public policy analysis: An introduction (4th ed). New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1994

Smith, C. F. (2005). Writing public policy: A practical guide to communicating in
the policy-making process. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Writing Effective Public Policy Papers: A Guide To Policy Advisers in Central and Eastern Europe—A detailed, 100-page guide to writing policy papers in English. Written for non-native speakers of English but still very useful for native English speakers.

The Policy Analysis Exercises: A Writing Guide [PDF]—Written for the Harvard Kennedy School’s Communications program, this 25-page PDF covers organizing your materials, writing a first draft, executive summary, final draft, and charts.

Websites

Writing in the Discipline—Compiled by the UT-Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs Graduate Writing Center, this site contains annotated links on a variety of genres that public policy students write: annotated bibliographies, briefing notes, case studies, grant writing, legal documents, op-eds, press releases, and more.

Suggestions for Writing Policy Analysis—A one-page list of tips for writing policy documents, from Philip Doty of the University of Texas.

Guidelines for Preparing Briefings—A manual from the RAND Corporation on structuring a presentation and preparing graphics.

This page was created by Andrea Olinger. To suggest a resource or report a broken link, email the GWC at gwc@gsa.asucla.ucla.edu.