Article: Before you begin writing your briefing paper, it is important to consider who will be reading it. This will drive the choices you make throughout the document. Before you start, think about the following questions, and if you don't know the answers, try to find out: Who will read this paper? Government officials? Business executives? Journalists? Some combination of these? How much does the audience already know about this issue? Do they know anything at all? What does the audience need to know? What authority does the audience have over the issue? What changes are he/she/they capable of making? Before you get started writing your briefing paper, you should map out, either mentally or in an outline, the key points you want to make. Because a briefing paper is typically only a page or two long, it needs to be condensed. Policy makers are very busy, and yours is not the only issue on their plates. There's no room for unnecessary information or long-winded explanations. Decide on your key points in advance to craft a concise briefing paper. While the formatting of a briefing paper isn't overly complex, you can save yourself some time by downloading one of the many free online templates for creating briefing papers in MS Word. A template can help you organize your thoughts and more quickly craft a briefing paper. If you aren't using a template, you 'll need to start setting up your paper by creating name, date, and subject lines. The name corresponds to the person to whom the briefing paper is addressed. The date corresponds to the date on which the paper was submitted. The subject line should describe in a few words the main topic of the briefing paper, such as "The Prevalence of Bullying in the North County School District." This lets the reader know, without even skimming the document, the issue that will be addressed. Some briefing papers include a summary section at the start of the paper, summarizing the entire paper in a few bullet points. Decide whether you'd like to do this, and if so, set aside space for this section. For a very busy reader, the summary offers the key points in advance, thus allowing skimming over of the rest of the document. A well-crafted briefing paper is often concise enough that this section is unnecessary. However, for issues that require immediate action, this can be a way to highlight the urgency of the paper by clearly indicating the deadline within the summary. The summary should be no more than three to four bullet points.
What is a summary of what this article is about?
Know your audience. Plan out key points. Consider using a template. Create a name, date, and subject lines. Consider a summary section.