Critical Policy Brief European Integration You will investigate a key tension within a European-wi ...
Critical Policy Brief European Integration You will investigate a key tension within a European-wide policy or European Union action, within a specific state, or related to a state’s efforts to attain a “European” membership. You will present this tension by evaluating the relevant concern, highlighting any existing policy, action, or programme that requires review, and providing recommendations for policy action. Assessment: 1) Organization and Structure – Paper follows a proper structure and logically walks reader through evidence, arguments, and recommendations. Effective use of headings will do a lot of work here! 2) Quality of Evidence – The paper offers comprehensive and critical evidence, demonstrating a wide reading of relevant literature. Quality of sources and effective citation matter. 3) Content – Demonstrates clear understanding of concepts and a firm understanding of the policy area, key institutions, and core challenges. Ensuring that you are correctly applying facts and theory is important. 4) Argumentation – There are discernable arguments, offering sound insights that logically connect the argumentation to recommendations. Arguments go beyond simple description and provide critical insight and analytical originality, creating new arguments or relating facts in new ways. 5) Findings and Recommendations – Findings and recommendations follow logically from Analysis and are supported by evidence and argumentation. Recommendations are either concrete or offer clear research paths to pursue. Logical flow from start to finish - building arguments toward conclusions - is key. 6) Presentation – Presentation through a logical and coherent structure, evidence of research and proper citation, correct grammar, and effective communication are key elements of a complete assignment. The briefing paper should be max 2,500 words, inclusive of title, abstract, and citations. This is a short writing assignment, brevity (the use of concise & assertive language) is your friend!! Remember! Written assignments are expected to be printed with standard 1-inch margins, in a standard 12pt font, with page numbers. A correct and consistent citation style is required (Chicago in-text or footnote preferred). You are welcome to use news media, NGO reports, EU reports, etc. alongside scholarly literature. Exception, please note: You may choose a more creative submission for this assessment using a more traditional “policy brief” layout. Please reach out to me if you are interested in this approach. Max 2500 words, follow the formatting guidance from the handout or refer to the Examples for a stylized Policy Brief submission. Remember to take screenshots of your source material - the first page is the most important showing the source, title, and author. Paste the screenshots into a word document and upload supplementary to your Policy Brief, or simply add them to the end of your policy brief following the Works Cited page.
