A policy report/white paper, modeled after reports or papers generated by think
tank or policy organization. Policy reports/white papers tend to be focused on
summarizing literature and conducting statistical analyses around a more
descriptive issue, problem, or policy. They contain a summary section where they
highlight key findings/results, a short literature review and methods section, and
longer results sections. They sometimes include policy recommendations.
Regardless of which option you choose, the final writing project should be at least 2500
words (about 10 pages double-spaced, excluding figures and bibliography), and is graded
on the following rubric:
Section Description Points
Background
research/literature
review
An introduction to your topic/question, and a synthesis of prior
research done on the question, organized into themes. You
should include at least 5 outside sources, and 3 of these should
be academic peer-reviewed. This can be shorter than a
traditional academic article.
3
Methods Includes 1) a description of your data and sample; 2) the
variables section with information on how the variables are
measured and coded, and 3) the analysis plan of the statistics
you calculate in the results
7
Results Where you are calculating and interpreting statistics. This
should include: 1) Publishable-quality tables of all descriptive
statistics, and 2) at least 5 figures plotted in Excel or Stata
15
Discussion and
conclusion OR key
findings summary
Either a brief discussion and conclusion if you are writing an
academic article, or a key findings summary if you are writing a
policy report/white paper. If you’re writing the policy
report/white paper, you can choose to include your key findings
summary in the beginning.
5
Total 30
