Course Description: Writing & Communication for Global Policy
This course explores how to effectively, professionally, and creatively communicate about policy issues. It is required for all MGPS students. We begin by practicing fundamentals of good writing – clarity, concision, persuasiveness, use of evidence, and audience awareness – and discuss the relationship between effective policy communication and theories of policy impact and policy change.
We then turn to exploring -- and practicing -- different writing/communication products that policy professionals use, first within organizations and then externally. These products include briefing and decision memos, cables, intelligence analysis, press releases, talking points, speechwriting, social media content, television, think tank reports, op-eds, and Congressional testimony. You will engage in peer review and have an opportunity to revise several assignments.
Course meetings are typically broken up into three segments. First, we debrief the previous week’s assignment, identifying challenges and sharing tools for addressing those challenges. Second, we discuss readings on the type of writing that students will be expected to produce in the following week, using a combination of discussion and in-class activities. Third, in many (not all) weeks, we will have a guest speaker who has professional experience & expertise on that particular type of writing/communication. Each member of the class will be responsible for introducing our speaker and preparing 1-2 initial questions to ask them. At other times, the third hour of class will involve an in-class writing exercise that simulates real-world writing under pressure.
Readings are relatively light, because you are expected to spend extra time drafting, revising, and editing their assignments. Some assignments may involve time constraints, to simulate a policy environment.