SCPL2601 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Jargon, Welfare Dependency
17 May 2018
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WEEK 5: POLICY BRIEFS WORKSHOP:
• What is distinctive about a policy brief?
o Purpose
o Structure
o Tone
• Policy Brief: Purpose:
o Policy Briefs synthesize research findings but mobilse them to help readers decide what
to do
o They relate research findings to current policy debates rather than scholarly debates
o Emphasis is on applying research outcomes rather than critiquing or assessing research
o Recommends policy actions
o Critique is still important at least some of it happens behind the scenes
o Readers have to trust the information and research you are providing is of high quality
and is accurate, you need to assess the quality of information you include, but don't
necessarily have to discuss that assessment
• Structure:
o Title
o Context and importance of the policy field/problem
o Critique of policy and research
o Policy recommendations
o References
• Context and Importance of the Field/Problem:
o In this section he goal is to communicate the importance of the problem/field/area.
• Historical and Contemporary context to the policy field and problem
• Identify exactly what the problem is
▪ Consider the problem is light of our discussons about problem
representation
• Which level of government is responsible for the field that specific Department
and any legislation/regulation that is applicable
o You will need to distill a range of information about the policy field down to a short
paragraph or two
• Write succinctly
• Consider what is important
• Critique of Policy and Research:
o This section discusses the current policy approach and evidence about its effectiveness
and any critiques of how the 'problem' has been defined.
o Key issues to cover:
• How did this situation arise
• Who is affected by the 'problem' and why?
• What do key stakeholders in the field have to say (for our purposes you need to
concentrate on scholarship, however you can also include political stakeholders
and NGO's and community groups)
• Consider the interests of those contributiong to the debate (eg: is it only private
health insurance industry arguing that the Private Health Insurance Rebate should
be increased?)
• What empirical evidence is available to support the policy/critiques?
• Policy Recommendations:
o Develop a recommendation from the scholarship (public or peer reviewed)
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