policy analysis essay examples

How to Write a Policy Analysis Paper in 6 Easy Steps (+Examples)

Working on a policy analysis paper is both challenging and fulfilling. In this article, we'll guide you through the process, whether you're new to the field or experienced. Understanding how policies are made, evaluated, and recommended is crucial for making a difference in public discussions and decisions. We'll cover everything from defining your goals to researching thoroughly, analyzing data, and presenting persuasive arguments. By following these steps, you'll be able to communicate your ideas effectively, shape procedure debates, and contribute to positive changes in society. Should you need more hands-on aid with the assignment, hire a college essay writer for the maximum result.

What Is a Policy Analysis Paper

A policy analysis essay definition is a comprehensive examination and evaluation of a particular policy or set of policies within a given context. It involves analyzing the rationale behind the system, its objectives, implementation strategies, and its intended and unintended consequences. This type of paper aims to provide insights into the effectiveness, efficiency, equity, and feasibility of the approach, often considering various perspectives, stakeholders, and alternatives. Through rigorous research, data analysis, and critical reasoning, procedure analysis papers aim to inform decision-makers, scholars, and the public about the strengths and weaknesses of existing policies and propose recommendations for improvement or alternative courses of action.

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Policy Analysis Paper Purpose

The purpose of a policy analysis paper is to critically assess a specific procedure or set of policies in order to provide valuable insights into its effectiveness, implications, and potential areas for improvement. By examining the underlying rationale, objectives, and outcomes of the implementation, this type of paper aims to inform decision-makers, stakeholders, and the public about its strengths, weaknesses, and impacts on society.

Students are writing a policy analysis paper in college for several reasons. Firstly, it allows them to develop critical thinking and analytical skills by evaluating real-world policies and their implications. Additionally, it helps students understand the complexities of policy-making processes and how policies impact various stakeholders. Writing analysis papers also enhances research and writing skills, as students must gather and synthesize information from diverse sources to support their arguments effectively. Furthermore, engaging with procedure analysis fosters civic engagement and social responsibility, encouraging students to contribute to public discourse and advocate for evidence-based solutions. Are you dealing with multiple assignments all at the same time? If you’re about to address the audience, say, ‘ write a speech for me ,’ so our experts can relieve your workload.

Topic Ideas for Policy Analysis Paper

Here’s a collection of 50 thought-provoking policy analysis paper topics for your inspiration. In addition, we’d like to offer you informative essay topics for the purpose of learning and self-education.

The viability of a universal healthcare system: An analysis.
Plastic bag bans: Environmental implications examined.
Tax credits for renewable energy adoption: Assessing effectiveness.
Social security and raising the retirement age: Exploring implications.
Implementing a four-day workweek: Feasibility assessment.
Community policing strategies: Effectiveness in crime reduction.
Increasing the minimum wage: Consequences evaluated.
School voucher programs: Impact on educational equity.
Congestion pricing for urban areas: Benefits and drawbacks analyzed.
Government subsidies for electric vehicles: Effectiveness assessed.
Zoning laws and affordable housing availability: An investigation.
National carbon tax: Feasibility and impact explored.
Mandatory voting laws: Consequences for political participation.
Drug rehabilitation programs: Effectiveness in reducing recidivism.
Legalizing marijuana: Public health implications examined.
Immigration policies and cultural diversity: Assessing impact.
Privatizing water utilities: Consequences analyzed.
Anti-bullying policies in schools: Effectiveness evaluated.
Free college tuition programs: Benefits and drawbacks assessed.
Wealth tax implementation: Feasibility analysis.
Ride-sharing services and traditional taxi industries: Impact assessment.
Gender quotas in corporate leadership: Effectiveness examined.
National gun registry: Implications and feasibility explored.
Expanding nuclear energy production: Consequences evaluated.
Mandatory parental leave policies: Effectiveness assessment.
Charter school expansion: Impact on public education explored.
Basic income implementation: Viability and consequences assessed.
Affordable housing initiatives: Success factors examined.
Internet privacy regulations: Impact on data security analyzed.
Corporate tax breaks: Economic implications assessed.
Universal preschool programs: Long-term benefits explored.
Climate change adaptation policies: Effectiveness in resilience building.
Universal voting by mail: Implications for voter turnout examined.
Reducing military spending: Consequences and feasibility analyzed.
Workplace diversity training: Effectiveness in promoting inclusivity.
Renewable energy subsidies: Impact on energy independence assessed.
Telecommuting incentives: Feasibility and impact on traffic analyzed.
Carbon capture and storage initiatives: Viability and effectiveness.
Local food sourcing policies: Benefits for communities examined.
Police body camera mandates: Impact on accountability assessed.
Community land trust programs: Success factors and limitations.
Mental health parity laws: Effectiveness in improving access.
Corporate social responsibility regulations: Impact on sustainability.
Universal pre-kindergarten education: Social and economic benefits.
Land value tax implementation: Impact on property markets assessed.
Affordable childcare initiatives: Impact on workforce participation.
Smart city technology investments: Benefits for urban development.
Flexible work hour policies: Impact on productivity and well-being.
Prescription drug pricing regulations: Consequences for affordability.
Public-private partnerships for infrastructure development: Effectiveness and risks assessed.

If you need more ideas, you may want to consult our guide on argumentative essay topics , which will definitely help kickstart your creativity.

How to Structure a Policy Analysis Paper

A policy analysis paper format demands organizing your content coherently and logically to effectively communicate your analysis and findings. Here's a typical structure you can follow:

Introduction

Provide an overview of the issue or problem you're analyzing.
Clearly state the purpose of your analysis.
Introduce the policy or policies under review.
Provide background information to contextualize the issue.
State your thesis or research question.

Policy Context and Background

Provide more in-depth background information on the issue.
Describe the historical development of the policies.
Discuss the context in which the procedure was implemented.
Identify key stakeholders and their interests in the strategy.

Policy Analysis Framework

Explain the framework or methodology you're using to analyze the policy.
Define key concepts and terms relevant to your analysis.
Discuss any theoretical frameworks or models guiding your analysis.
Outline the criteria or criteria you will use to evaluate the procedure's effectiveness.

Policy Goals and Objectives

Identify and discuss the stated goals and objectives of the policy.
Evaluate the clarity and coherence of these goals.
Discuss any potential conflicts or contradictions among the goals.

Policy Implementation

Describe how the policy has been implemented in practice.
Discuss any challenges or barriers to implementation.
Evaluate the effectiveness of implementation strategies.

Policy Outcomes and Impacts

Assess the outcomes and impacts of the policy.
Evaluate the extent to which the procedure has achieved its intended goals.
Discuss any unintended consequences or side effects of the approach.

Policy Alternatives

Identify and discuss alternative policy options or approaches.
Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each alternative.
Discuss the potential trade-offs associated with each alternative.

Recommendations

Based on your analysis, provide recommendations for policymakers.
Discuss specific actions or changes that could improve the process.
Justify your recommendations with evidence from your analysis.
Summarize the main findings of your analysis.
Restate your thesis or research question.
Reflect on the broader implications of your analysis.
Discuss any limitations or areas for further research.
Provide a list of sources cited in your paper.
Follow the appropriate citation style (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago).

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How to Write a Policy Analysis Paper

In this section, we'll cover the basics of writing a policy analysis paper. This type of paper involves breaking down complicated policy issues, figuring out how well they're working, and suggesting ways to make them better. We'll walk you through the steps, like defining the goals of the implementation, looking at how it's being put into action, and checking what effects it's having. By the end, you'll have the skills to write a clear, well-reasoned paper that can help shape policies for the better.

Understanding the Policy Issue

Start by thoroughly understanding the policy issue or problem you're analyzing. Research its background, context, and significance. Identify key stakeholders, relevant laws or regulations, and any existing policies addressing the issue.

Defining the Scope and Purpose

Clearly define the scope and purpose of your analysis. Determine what specific aspect of the approach you'll focus on and why it's important. Clarify the goals of your analysis and what you hope to achieve with your paper. Use an expert essay writing service to streamline your effort in producing a first-class paper.

Gathering Data and Evidence

Collect relevant data and evidence to support your analysis. This may include statistical information, case studies, expert opinions, and academic research. Use credible sources and ensure your data is accurate and up-to-date.

Analyzing the Policy

A policy analysis paper evaluates the legislative program’s effectiveness, strengths, weaknesses, and implications. Use a structured approach, such as a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) or cost-benefit analysis, to assess the procedure from multiple perspectives. Consider its intended goals, implementation strategies, outcomes, and unintended consequences. If you need help with SWOT analysis, using our analytical essay writing service is highly recommended.

Developing Recommendations

Based on your analysis, develop clear and actionable recommendations for policymakers or stakeholders. Identify specific changes or improvements that could enhance the system’s effectiveness or address its shortcomings. Support your recommendations with evidence and reasoning.

Writing and Communicating Your Analysis

Organize your analysis into a coherent and persuasive paper. Structure your paper with an introduction, background information, analysis, recommendations, and conclusion. Use clear and concise language, avoiding jargon or technical terms unless necessary. Provide citations for your sources and evidence. Finally, ensure your paper is well-written, logically organized, and effectively communicates your insights and recommendations.

Policy Analysis Paper Example

A policy analysis paper example serves as a valuable learning tool for students by providing a concrete model to follow and reference when undertaking their own analysis assignments. By studying an example paper, students can gain insights into the structure, content, and methodology of analysis, helping them understand how to effectively frame their analysis, support their arguments with evidence, and formulate actionable recommendations.

Example 1: “Implementing Universal Basic Income”

This policy analysis paper examines the feasibility and potential impacts of implementing a Universal Basic Income (UBI) program in the United States. It explores various options for UBI design, including cost and financing considerations, labor market effects, poverty reduction potential, and administrative feasibility. By reviewing existing evidence and debates surrounding UBI, the paper aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the opportunities and challenges associated with adopting such a program, ultimately highlighting the need for careful analysis, experimentation, and stakeholder engagement in shaping effective UBI policies.

Example 2: “Addressing Climate Change through Carbon Pricing”

This policy analysis paper examines the role of carbon pricing policies in addressing climate change, evaluating their efficacy, implementation challenges, and potential impacts. Carbon pricing mechanisms, including carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems, aim to internalize the external costs of carbon emissions and incentivize emission reductions. The paper discusses the economic efficiency of carbon pricing in promoting innovation and investment in clean technologies while also addressing equity considerations regarding its distributional impacts on low-income households and vulnerable communities.

Writing a policy analysis paper is super important for students because it helps them learn how to tackle tough societal problems and make smart decisions. You get to sharpen your thinking skills, learn how to research thoroughly and become better at expressing yourself clearly. Plus, writing these papers helps students practice effectively communicating their ideas, which is a skill they'll need in their future careers, whether they work in government, nonprofits, or elsewhere. By digging into real-world issues, students also get a better grip on how politics, economics, and society all fit together. If you’re not committed to handling this task yourself, instruct our experts, saying, ‘ write my essay ,’ and receive the most competent help within hours.

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What Is a Policy Analysis Paper Outline?

How to write a policy analysis paper, what is a policy analysis paper.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

Peterborough

How to Write a Policy Assignment

What is a policy assignment, policy critique.

Policy Brief/Briefing Note

Reading and Analyzing Policy

Writing policy assignments, research and writing process.

Understanding, evaluating, and writing policy documents are important competencies to develop as undergraduate students in a wide range of fields, spanning from Health Care to Environmental Science to Education. Policy is informed by strong research and accurate evidence, often compiled and presented by government and non-governmental organizations. Public policies include formal legislation, official plans, and regulations created by various levels of government. Each of these can act as guiding principles for governmental decision making and program delivery. Non-governmental and para-governmental organizations publish policy briefs, commission reports, and fact sheets to inform policy makers and recommend policy change.

Course instructors often ask students to analyze policy documents to better understand issues and policy alternatives, and students in many disciplines must write policy documents, including critiques and briefs or briefing notes. This guide offers steps to reading policy and keys for effective policy writing.

Types of Policy Assignments

In a policy critique, students are expected to read and critically analyze one or more policy documents that address a common issue. The goal of this assignment is to present an overall assessment of current or proposed policies and their efficacy or potential considering both scholarly theory and real-world, practical application with consideration of environmental, social, or economic contexts.

Proposed structure

Issue: what is the policy in question?
Background: where did it emerge? What problem does it try to address?
Application: so far, based on evidence, how effective has it been?
Limits: what are limits with the policy? How has it been adapted? What questions remain?
Evaluation/potential: based on concepts and theories from course materials, what is the potential for this policy to address particular issue/problem?

Policy Brief (Briefing Note)

Policy briefs or briefing notes are documents written by governmental and non-governmental organizations to propose evidence-based policy solutions to a well-defined social, environmental, or economic issue. Briefs present findings from academic and grey literature to demonstrate the scope of an issue and to analyze its context and background. The brief is organized with clear headings and short sections, which are supported by figures or tables.

Executive Summary: similar to an abstract, briefly explains the goal, findings, and recommendations. Although it is placed first in the document, it is written last.
Issue Definition: identify and explain the key issue and its scope and significance.
Policy Background: synthesize evidence to explain the context of the issue – its origins, key stakeholders, overlapping issues, and potential barriers – and any existing policy.
Best Practices: describe relevant policies from other jurisdictions and introduce specific examples of policy and best practices that reinforce the argument your briefing note presents.
Policy Options: synthesize your research to present a few policy options; for each option, describe the approach and present advantages, challenges, and potential barriers. Present one policy recommendation from these options.
References: divide references into sections (e.g., academic sources, grey literature, policy documents etc.)

Each policy document is focused on a specific issue and establishes particular goals; when you read any policy document, you are working to understand and analyze the issue and how the policy addresses the issue. These messages are often presented in different ways. Policy briefs are, well, brief, but other policy documents or commissioned reports can be quite lengthy, so it is important to develop a reading strategy for each new document. Generally, it is best to follow this process: preview, plan, read and take notes, and assess within course context.

Because policy documents vary significantly in form and purpose, it is essential to preview the document prior to reading it: identify its author, its purpose, and its form. Take time to read the executive summary, which presents a short explanation of the issue and purpose of the document. Understand its authorship and the interests of the individual or organizational author.

Make a plan

Identify your goal in reading the document: do you wish to better understand the issue, to identify policy alternatives, to appreciate broader context, or to determine efficacy of policy? How will this document inform your understanding of the issue you are studying? What sections will be most useful or relevant?

Read and take notes

Your preview and plan can direct your reading and notetaking. Read closely to understand the policy or issue, its context, and the evidence used to support it. Identify stakeholders and their interests, the goals of the policy and how those goals are measurable and actionable. You may find it helpful to refer to the table of contents or index (or to use the ‘find’ tool in your browser) to seek out sections that contain relevant keywords in documents spanning more than 100 pages.

Assess policy within course context

Refer to theories, frameworks, and indices that you have discussed in class to assess a policy. Consider whether it follows a particular conceptual framework or achieves particular numerical targets. Compare it to other policies in similar contexts and analyze its parts to assess its adaptability to different contexts. Evaluate its fit to the specific issue and its relevance for various stakeholder needs or values.

Reading an Official Plan

An official plan is often a lengthy document that covers many topics and issues within a set of overarching goals for an organization, like a university, hospital, or municipality. Your aim should be to understand the overarching goals of the plan and its broader context, which are likely laid out in the executive summary and introductory sections. Then you may need to seek out references to a particular topic, issue, or stakeholder; the index, table of contents, or “find” tool can be helpful for this.

Reading a Policy Brief

The goal of a policy brief is to inform and persuade policy makers, so your aim should be to understand the issue the brief identifies and to analyze the policy it proposes. The structure and design of the policy brief will guide your reading. Take time to understand the context of the issue and the policy: who are the stakeholders, what are the goals, what is the process, and what are the barriers? Analyze the policy within the disciplinary concepts you’re learning in class; how does the policy fit particular frameworks, theories, or indices you’ve discussed? What is unique about this policy? How can this policy be adapted to different contexts? What is its potential to address the issue?

Successful policy assignments are focused, well-researched, analytical, organized, and concise. Therefore, it is important to take time to define the issue, understand the context of the issue, and seek out policy alternatives prior to identifying a recommended course of action.

Focused Issue
Using Research
Demonstrating Analysis
Organized, Concise, and Clear Writing

Focused issue

It is essential that you present a focused and clear issue, and that issue must be at the scale of policy action. For example, policy briefs can address ER wait times or agricultural pesticide use, but issues such as access to health care or the sustainability of food production are too complex for you to address in a short policy assignment. Often, course material and core concepts provide useful direction for you to narrow your issue.

In policy assignments, an issue is clearly defined and contextualized with evidence from scholarly and grey literature. It is important for you to explain how scholars, governments, or NGOs have discussed the issue, and numerical data or figures can demonstrate the scale of an issue or its projected trajectory. Provide details about the issue in its context: be specific about place, time, and stakeholders, and acknowledge any overlapping economic, environmental, or social issues.

Example: Effective issue definition 1

Age-friendly municipalities foster solidarity among generations within communities and reach out to older people at risk of isolation by making them feel socially included and involved (WHO, 2007). It is well documented that these trends are happening across Canada, and evidence suggests that local governments have a key role in enabling older people to live longer. It is unclear to what degree Aurora’s municipal government is prepared to support its expanding ageing population. It is essential to continue to examine new approaches to housing and transportation infrastructure within Aurora in order to improve public policy matters in regards to their ageing population.

Issue is grounded by focused concept and evidence; writer demonstrates value of municipal policy to address the issue
Writer precisely identifies the issue to be discussed in brief and the goals of the report

Example: Ineffective issue definition 1

In addition to the infrastructure issue in Peterborough, there is also an issue regarding how spread out the community is. The city is too big for residents to be able to walk the entire city. Amenities are also very spread out; it is unlikely that pedestrians would be able to access the required amenities within walking distance from their house. Ultimately, the main issues surrounding the walkability in the City of Peterborough are the lack of infrastructure and maintenance, as well as the lack of available activities near to peoples’ residences.

Not grounded in conceptual framework or theory; writer needs to explain why walkability is an issue that a municipality should address
Lack of precision or evidence to support claims about the size of the city or accessibility to amenities

Using research

Policy is informed by evidence from scholarly literature, government data, and research by various stakeholder organizations. Effective policy assignments synthesize evidence from academic and grey literature to create an accurate account of the issue and policy options. Common forms of evidence in policy writing include numerical and financial data, figures such as graphs and maps, excerpts from existing policies, recommendations from NGOs, and conceptual frameworks.

In policy writing, your goal is to present research both accurately and accessibly, as decision-makers in government and business may not be familiar with terminology or concepts presented by scholars. Make efforts to paraphrase the evidence you use and be sure to include citations in the form requested by your professor (footnotes or author-date systems are common).

One of the key factors in Municipal Cultural Planning is increasing cross-sectoral strategies by building new partnerships “…between the municipality and its community and business partners” (Municipal Cultural Plan, toolkit, 2011, p.21) for long term sustainability. Therefore, municipal cultural planning “…does not look at policy sectorally” (Gollmitzer, 2008, p.18), but instead strengthens and integrates “…cultural resources across all facets of government planning and decision making” (Municipal Cultural Plan Toolkit, 2011, p.21). Building new networks are supported by leveraging the sense of place within a community. Adopting a place-based planning approach allows “…government, community organizations and citizens to explore, measure and asses the values, resources and assets of the community” (Huhtala, 2016, p.66), in order to leverage them for economic prosperity.

Writer synthesizes academic and grey literature to demonstrate how concepts are applied in policy.
Writer also demonstrates analysis of evidence and its relevance to the brief’s focused issue.
Use of direct quotation can feature the language of a policy if the writer wishes to analyze discourse; however, this excerpt relies too heavily on direct quotation, and it would be stronger if this evidence was paraphrased.

Demonstrating analysis

The quality of your policy assignment is closely tied to your analysis of the issue and the policy options you present. It is important to evaluate policy options as you research and to critically analyze how those options address the issue within its particular context. Take time to examine specific factors and parties involved in an issue and consider how these factors may facilitate or challenge each policy option; furthermore, you should also assess the advantages and disadvantages of each policy option and its impacts on these factors or parties.

You may find it valuable to consider theories, concepts, or frameworks from your course to develop your argument and to establish coherence throughout your assignment. If you assess all policy options through the same critical lens or theory, then your message will be clear and consistent throughout your document.

Integrating senior housing into the fabric of the inner core communities could make housing developments viable and situate seniors in settings where they can access these services by foot or nearby transit (Fang, 2013). This concept can allow seniors, who may be considering downsizing, to remain within their community where they can keep active, live within easy access to medical and community services, and stay close to their support network that they have spent their lives establishing. However, the growing demand for these developments could put major pressure on the municipality. City officials would have to amend current zoning by-laws to allow commercial and residential uses to be a part of mixed-use development and appropriate provisions need to be provided to ensure compatibility and to minimize potential negative impacts.

Writer presents both advantages and challenges of policy option within common concept of healthy aging communities.
Writer also includes potential impacts and barriers of policy option, which demonstrates their consideration of the issue and its context.

Organized, concise, and clear writing

Policy writing should be well-organized and easy to follow. Use headings and subheadings to create structure and to support your reader. It is common to number sections and subsections to further clarify the order of your ideas. In addition, good paragraph structure also supports organization and clarity, so we encourage you to use specific topic sentences to introduce the main idea of a paragraph.

Well-written policy assignments employ a formal writing style and use third-person voice (e.g., they) rather than first-person (e.g., I, we) or second-person (e.g., you) voice. Further, they avoid jargon, but use specific and clear language. When you revise your draft, take time to consider each sentence and remove repetitive or redundant phrases and words.

Finally, it is important to pay attention to the details. Label any figures or tables in your document; make reference to these figures or tables in the text of your work (e.g., see Figure 1). Also be sure to follow assignment instructions for referencing evidence in your text (e.g., footnotes or author-date system) and in your list of sources, which is often categorized by type of source (e.g., academic, government, NGOs).

There are many ways to approach a policy assignment, but it is important to take time to research and analyze issues and policy options thoroughly prior to writing. Consider the following steps to complete your policy assignment:

Read assignment instructions closely
Preliminary research: review course materials, brainstorm, conduct environmental scan or site visit, consider current issues relevant to course concepts
Define issue: consider questions and frameworks
Research issue and context
Research and evaluate policy alternatives in other places
Analyze policy alternatives and consider fit for current issue and context; select policy options to present
Outline sections: what evidence goes where? How does evidence work together?
Write sections (leave Executive Summary until last)
Revise for organization, analysis, and use of evidence. See Strategies for Revision and Proofreading.
Edit for clarity, concision, and grammar
Complete final proof of document
These examples are not to be reproduced in whole or part. Use of the ideas or words in this example is an act of plagiarism, which is subject to academic integrity policy at Trent University and other academic institutions.

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Policy Analysis

You have clearly defined your problem and created a problem statement. Now it’s time to consider the policies that could address it. If you haven’t defined your problem, visit the Problem Identification page.

stakeholder engagement and analysis wheel with Policy analysis section highliged

What is policy analysis?

Policy Analysis is the process of identifying potential policy options that could address your problem and then comparing those options to choose the most effective, efficient, and feasible one.

Why is policy analysis important?

Conducting a policy analysis ensures you have gone through a systematic process to choose the policy option that may be best for your situation.

consider possible policy options and determine whether they will work well in your situation

Who should you involve in your policy analysis?

Icon of speech bubbles on top of silhouettes of people

People who can provide and/or interpret information about the policy

Who they are:

Subject matter experts
Community Partners

How they can contribute:

Provide and interpret information you need for your policy analysis

Icon of a group of people on top of silhouettes of other people

People affected by the policy

People whose jobs or lives might be affected by the policy

Community members
Community partners
Local decision makers
Provide contextual knowledge, such as potential social, educational, and cultural perspectives

Icon of a network of resources (like money) on top of silhouettes of people

People who administer resources related to the policy

Public officials and administrators
Include these stakeholders during the policy analysis process to help you understand the potential economic and/or budgetary impacts of the policy options being considered. They can also help you understand the legal landscape around the potential policies

You may want assistance from an economist or researcher when complex calculations are needed to determine some impacts.

How do you conduct a policy analysis?

1. Research and identify possible policy options.

You can do this by reviewing research literature, conducting an environmental scan, and surveying best practices to understand what other communities are doing.

2. Describe the possible policy options.

As you conduct your policy analysis, pay attention to the health impact, cost of implementation, and feasibility of each option. To describe these three factors, you can ask yourself and your stakeholders questions such as:

What population(s) will be affected by each policy option? By how much? And when?
What is the context around the possible policy options, including political history, environment, and policy debate?
What are the costs and benefits associated with each policy option from a budgetary perspective?

When you are assessing feasibility, it is important to identify any barriers that could prevent a policy from being developed, enacted, or implemented. A policy might be more feasible in one city or at a certain time, but not others. You might find that as circumstances change, what is considered affordable or publicly acceptable may change with them.

3. Rank the possible policy options and pick the one you think is best.

Compare the policy options for health impact, economic and budgetary impact, and feasibility. Next, rank each one based on those criteria. Stakeholders can provide guidance on how to do this. Your rankings will always be partially subjective, so it helps to systematically document your rationale. In some cases, your review may reveal a clear winner—a policy that is a) feasible, b) has a strong, positive impact on public health, and c) is economically and fiscally viable. In other cases, ranking the options may be more complicated and involve assessing trade-offs.

For example, when considering policies for reducing smoking, there are trade-offs related to feasibility and impact between options. (Feasibility and impact depends on your context, like your location.) You may have to have choose between a more feasible policy (like an indoor smoking ban for restaurants) and one with more widespread impact (like raising prices on tobacco products in your state).

LITERATURE REVIEW: an examination of the current body of research about your policy problem (and can include possible policy options). This kind of review may help you identify what is already known about the policy options as well as any gaps in the current research.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN : a proactive, systematic collection of information about events, trends, and expectations of what you might encounter during the policy process.

Learn more – See CDC’s Policy Analysis Worksheet for more examples of questions you can use in your policy analysis.

You researched and identified possible policy options with a literature review, environmental scans, and surveys of best practices
You described possible policy options, including each one’s health impact, cost of implementation, and feasibility
You ranked each policy option based on health impact, economic and budgetary impact, and feasibility—and then chose the one you think is best for your situation

Policy Analysis: Key Questions : This worksheet provides questions that form a framework for your policy analysis.

Policy Analysis Table : This organizational table can help you assess each policy option against set criteria and then to compare policy options.

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A Political Science Guide

For students, researchers, and others interested in doing the work of political science.

Policy Paper

What is a policy paper.

Policy papers are different from the standard research papers in several respects:

They are usually addressed at a non-academic audience , such as a particular official, agency, or organization
They often focus on prescriptive questions. They may begin by diagnosing a particular issue or situation, and typically argue for a solution that will address that issue or situation
Often, policy papers are focused on being persuasive . The intention is to convince the target audience that your position is the correct one.
Evidence in support of a position is crucial. This is also important for research papers, but it tends to be absolutely critical in policy papers.
Policy papers are written efficiently. The audience often does not have much time and does not want to read a book on the subject. Indeed, often policy papers are accompanied by policy briefs which summarize the papers in a page or less.

Policy Paper Components

As with research papers, there is not just one way to write a policy paper.The University of Texas has a nice website with a detailed model, “Suggestions for Writing Policy Analysis” .

The basic elements of a policy paper include:

It is helpful to careful define the problem and frame it as a specific question to be answered.
These are the choices for addressing the policy problem.
This is the step that often is missed in policy analysis. Writers often fail to be explicit and may even assume that everyone shares the same ideas of what the criteria for making a choice should be. This is a mistake. Indeed, it is an important service to the reader (and to the decision-maker) to know the reasons for recommending one policy (or set of policies) over others. There often is major debate about criteria that should be used.
In his book, A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis , Eurgene Bardach helpfully notes that such criteria are best thought of as applied to “the projected outcomes ” of a policy choice. He makes the useful distinction between evaluative criteria, such as efficiency and fairness, and practical criteria, such as legality and political acceptability.
Ideally, the policy recommendation should flow from the logical application of your criteria to your policy choices. This is illustrated in the hypothetical example (see table) below.
In this example, the researcher was able to make clear outcomes about how the policy choices met some criteria (Policy Choice A fails to meet the first criteria of legality). However, it there is some uncertainty about others. For instance, it is unclear how Policy Choice B would affect the criteria of inclusiveness, or how to judge the cost effectiveness of Policy Choice C. In the real world, we may need to incorporate such uncertainty into our policy judgments. But it is important for the policy analyst to be clear to readers and decision-makers where that uncertainty exists.
Another thing to note is that not all criteria are equal. It may be useful to rank the importance of criteria. Many of us would likely consider legality a necessary criterion. This would allow us to immediately remove Policy Choice A from our list of choices without any further consideration.

Policy Paper Examples

Peterson Institute for International Economics. “Policy Briefs”
UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy. “Working Paper Series.”
Many articles in the journal Foreign Affairs are policy papers.
Oxfam International. “Policy & Research.”
Bardach, Eugene and Eric M. Patashnik. 2015. A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis: The Eightfold Path to More Effective Problem Solving. CQ Press.
Eóin Young and Lisa Quinn. “Writing Effective Policy Papers: A guide for policy advisers in Central and Eastern Europe.” Open Society Institute .
“The Policy Analysis Process”, Professor Michelle A. Saint-Germain (CSULB)
Overseas Development Institute. “Writing Policy Papers.”
UN Food and Agriculture Organization. “Writing Effective Reports, Section 4: Preparing Policy Briefs”
“How to inform policy makers in a briefing memo or opinion”
“Tasks for writing briefing memos or opinions”
Checklists for communicating the policy process

updated July 12, 2017 – MN

Healthcare Policy Analysis Paper

Categories: Healthcare Crisis

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Words: 434 |

Published: Jan 29, 2024

Words: 434 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Introduction, overview of the healthcare policy, analysis of the policy impact, assessment of policy strengths and weaknesses, public opinion and political landscape, policy recommendations.

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Policy Analysis and Evaluation Compare & Contrast Essay

Introduction, definition of the problem, establishment of evaluation criteria, alternative policies, evaluation of alternative policy, displaying and selecting among policies, works cited.

Globalization has influenced the growth of trade, to the point that countries engage in exports and imports transactions worth billions everyday. Governments take advantage of these transactions by drafting and implementing policies to promote their countries as preferable trading hubs. This status is important as it determines the angle with which the world views a country.

Among the leading hubs currently are China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Most of their status success is the result of their globally analyzed and approved trade policies, although China receives some criticism from the United States occasionally. The UAE is among the best examples of what other countries should be looking into to achieve global economic dominance.

When the UAE became part of the World Trade Organization (WTO) back in 1996, it had to abide by its requirements. The WTO regulations require that member states reduce the frictions that slow down trade. Such barriers include trade tariffs and import tax imposed on certain commodities viewed to be crucial in the daily life of citizens.

To do this, it adjusted its trade policies. With the adjustments, the countries ensured that it had created an international trading environment that supported, and therefore encouraged multilateral trade with other countries. This ensured that the country was successful in its quest to becoming the world leading open economy, getting ahead in international trade, and promoting competition (Ministry of Foreign Trade).

All these required implementation of new policies that were attractive to the global business economy. The greatest of the new policy’s contents was the reduction of the interest rates to 5%. This may be the lowest interest rate offered by any country worldwide. Such is because of the market observation that there was a boom in the infrastructure sector in form of foreign direct investments.

The WTO agreements heavily influenced the evaluation criteria. After signing in officially as members, the UAE bound itself to the regulations that it had to implement policies similar to those of other WTO member states.

Leading economies such as the United States and Japan set precedence serving as the best that showed the way to go. Moreover, the UAE government had already drawn up a roadmap that indicated the destination of the country’s economy in the following decade.

The UAE, in their quest to attain economic leadership, ended up creating one of the biggest rifts between the rich and the poor. Most of its urban population being foreign includes an indigenous population that wallows below the poverty line.

The leaders are acting upon this notice, as the government promotes education of this population through academic scholarships and student expenditure subsidies. With this, the poor will arm themselves with the right qualifications required to aid them in their steering of the country towards economic growth.

It is clear that the trade policies positively transformed the UAE economy to great heights, but it has also divided the greater native population, isolating them to the status of a helpless population. Through the eyes of Malaysia, one is able to get a good example of the alternative policy.

Though they retained their gap between the rich and poor, they boast economic success as, other than being a highly developed economy, Malaysia managed to attain a 10% economic growth in the first quarter of 2010 (Malaysian Economy-Update). It can only credit this development to the government’s involvement of its people in its development blueprint.

The two policies utilized by the two countries both target economic superiority, though both represent different priorities in their mandate. Leading in economic growth and sustainability may be the dream of every nation, but considering the fact that the native only suffer because of this success, it is important for nations to embrace patriotism.

The people do not need food from the government, but expect it to teach them how to catch fish so that they finally do not need it much to eat. Equipping them with the academic skills they need to contribute to the development of the economy is the first and most important step towards attaining this. This will of course require redirecting of resources from the trading development sector to the education sector.

For a nation that earns from every sector that exists in different economies, this ought not to be a hard endeavor to indulge in. The only problem hampering this is prioritization of projects in the country’s budget. This is the wisest investment a country can make, considering it will double as an appreciation to the beneficiaries.

Governments ought to review critically trade policies so that they create a mechanism whereby the benefits resulting from modernization create better environments for the locals to participate in.

This move increases the loyalty citizens have to a country, according to observations over time, which equally translates to the dedication they give to ensure its success. Everyone looks for a place to call home, and often, that he/she ensures that place looks its best when such an opportunity comes up.

Ministry of Foreign Trade – U.A.E. U.A.E. Trade Policy . 2010. Web.

Malaysian Economy-Update. September 1, 2010. Web.

The Problem of Developing Countries Access to the WTO Dispute Settlement
Network Basics: Advantages and Disadvantages of Network Devices
The Importance of WTO
The role of Islam in Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy
Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) in Integration with Federal Union
Restrepo Movie and International Relations
American Public opinion about foreign countries
International Terrorism: The Challenge to Global Security
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2019, June 6). Policy Analysis and Evaluation. https://ivypanda.com/essays/policy-analysis-and-evaluation/

"Policy Analysis and Evaluation." IvyPanda , 6 June 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/policy-analysis-and-evaluation/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Policy Analysis and Evaluation'. 6 June.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Policy Analysis and Evaluation." June 6, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/policy-analysis-and-evaluation/.

1. IvyPanda . "Policy Analysis and Evaluation." June 6, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/policy-analysis-and-evaluation/.

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IvyPanda . "Policy Analysis and Evaluation." June 6, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/policy-analysis-and-evaluation/.

Health Care Policy Analysis

How it works

1 Introduction
2 Problem Statement
3 Existing Policy
4 IV Selecting the evaluation criteria
5 Efficiency
6 Improved Health Outcomes
8 Constructing the Options
9 Comprehensive Contraception Coverage
10 Recommendation

Introduction

Women’s reproductive rights have been an ongoing issue the United States has dealt with for decades. The main issues surrounding women’s rights, namely the woman’s right to choose, has been debated and politicized, often times with out the actual input from a woman. This policy analysis will examine the relationship between politicizing the reproductive rights of women coupled with the rights of employers to refuse coverage for birth control and the policies surrounding these issues.

In 2018, Federal policy makers finalized policy changes that gives employers the right to deny or opt out of coverage of birth control to women on the grounds of religion or moral conflict.

The number of women this will effect is not well numerated; however, one can deduce that a multitude of women and families will be affected. Many of which who do not share the same moral or religious convictions of their employer.

Roe vs. Wade is a court decision made by the supreme court in 1973, with this decision the supreme court ruled that a woman has the right to safe and legal abortion. The ruling cemented the right to abortions at a time when women died during or after unsafe illegal abortions. In 2019, with the confirmation of supreme court justice Kavanaugh, a political conservative, abortion rights are at risk of being overturned, or weakened. With this comes the concern that overturning of the federal policy, will give the decision to the individual state as to the decision of abortion rights. In some states this may lead to the outright restriction of abortion without exception, especially abortion greater than 20 weeks.

The issue becomes intensified given that some employers, especially those with religious affiliations, have banned coverage for birth control. This presents an important moral dilemma for the woman, on one hand she can’t obtain birth control, on the other when she gets pregnant, she does not have the option to a safe legal abortion. This is important because it completely takes the authority over one’s own body from the woman. It places the dominion and power of a woman into the hands of politicians and policy makers.

Problem Statement

There is currently, and historically, a need for birth control for women to have autonomy over the timeframe she wants to have a child, if at all. Taking the option for insurance covered birth control away from the woman, while simultaneously reversing abortion laws such as Roe vs wade has dangerous implications for the health, physical and social well-being, political position and rights of a woman. This sets a precedence for an attack on womanhood, reproductive rights and family planning on ones on time. This also gives forced religious conformity on the woman, based on the religious beliefs of her employer.

Relevance and timeliness of this issue is evidence by the recent appointment of conservative supreme court justice Kavanaugh, as well as the recent supreme court ruling in Burwell Vs. Hobby Lobby. In Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby the supreme court ruled that companies had the right to refuse coverage of contraception to their employees. These employers were given a year’s “safe haven” to work with stakeholders to determine contraceptive coverage in each state. In this way, control over religious exemption policies for contraceptive coverage has been devolved to individual states. Policies in California and New York, for example, mirror the narrow criteria for religious exemption outlined in the original Affordable Care Act language. In contrast, Florida and Texas have no official policies on exemption, making it easier to refuse coverage on religious grounds. Also, attacks on the affordable care act has, finalized late 2018, allowed religious organizations to claim exemptions on to the affordable care act, allowing them to decline birth control coverage based on moral and religious objections (Batra & Bird 2015).

Understanding the political agenda to restrict women’s reproductive rights is important. According to Fried (2013), Immediately following the Roe vs Wade decision, the anti-abortion movement gained momentum. It became part of the burgeoning New Right-Wing agenda, which, with the election of President Reagan, consolidated its power. Steeped in religious dogma and fear-mongering, the issue of abortion and birth control went from a decision up to an individual, to the political agenda of the conservatives. Much of the current debate surrounding family planning focuses on women’s reproductive rights and health. In the 1960s, however, proponents of these programs often emphasized their links to the economy. Both President Lyndon Johnson and President Nixon stressed how family planning programs would promote the opportunities of children and families and thus drive economic growth (Bailey, 2013)

The stakeholders in this ongoing issue are the woman, the organization withholding the coverage of birth control and the pro-life movement. Pro-life movements such as the American Life League, ALL, the Catholic church and other religious groups opposes abortion and contraception under any circumstances. Other stakeholders include organizations such as planned parenthood which is a pro-choice organization. According to Planned Parenthood, the stance they take regarding the issue includes the belief that, women facing an unintended pregnancy must have access to safe, legal abortion services without exception. Also, they believe that all people deserve access to birth control and other preventative services. Planned Parenthood vigorously opposes the religious and moral exemptions to deny access to contraception, stating, refusal laws are a license to discriminate.

Government intervention on this issue is of major importance. According to the New York times, in federal Judge Haywood’s recent, the judge stated, decision women who lose their entitlement to cost-free contraceptives are less likely to use an effective method, or any method at all — resulting in unintended pregnancies. Moreover, many of these women are likely to turn to state programs to obtain free contraceptives, at significant cost to the states. This is one example that illustrates why the government should have an interest in this issue (Pear, 2019). More insurance covered birth control, will equal less cots to the states and less unwanted pregnancies. More un-intended pregnancies will lead to more illegal unsafe abortions. More access to effective contraception will lead to less unwanted abortions.

Church and state are also separated in the United states of America. Americans practice many different religious doctrines and have many different interpretations. According to work by Srikanthan and Reid (2008), religious and cultural factors have the potential to influence the acceptance and use of contraception by couples from different religious backgrounds in very distinct ways. Within religions, different sects may interpret religious teachings on this subject in varying ways, and individual women and their partners may choose to ignore religious teachings. Cultural factors are equally important in couples’ decisions about family size and contraception. According to research by Kavanaugh and Anderson (2013), access to safe, effective contraception is both a public health and feminist imperative. Family planning products and services are associated with a range of health benefits, including reduced unintended pregnancies, improved infant health, and lowered pregnancy-related morbidity and mortality. Kavanaugh and Anderson go on to state, couples who do not use contraception have an 85% chance of experiencing and unplanned pregnancy. All this illustrates the implications of denying and restricting access to birth control based on someone else’s religious will.

As policy is being shaped, and the affordable care act is being changed by the current administration to eliminate the mandate of all employers to provide birth control as a penetrative service, protection of women’s rights has become an issue at the fore front of current conversation. The current climate of political gender wars sets the climate for alternative concepts to protect the interest of women and families. Different methods should be explored and evaluated for practicality, that protect the religious freedoms of all involved parties, including the woman, at the center of this issue.

This issue also becomes a socio-economic attack on poorer women, it is a well-known fact that women in a higher socioeconomic class have less children than the women with lesser incomes, this troubling truth becomes exponentially wider when access to proper contraception coverage is blocked and denied by an employer.

Existing Policy

In November 2018, the current administration, under the leadership of President Trump, finalized policy that vastly expanded the types of employers that are exempt from the Affordable Care Acts requirement for preventative services such as contraception. Previous regulations, under the Obama administration, only gave exemptions to houses of worship or hospitals with religious affiliation. Current regulations allow nonprofit or for-profit employers with an objection to contraceptive coverage based on religious beliefs or moral objections to qualify for an exemption and drop contraceptive coverage from their plans. The current regulations also apply to institutions of higher learning that cover students. This opens the door for any employer or university to qualify for an exemption on the grounds of religious or moral opposition. This denies the female employee and student the option to birth control at no cost to her.

Policy makers and government officials at the individual state level should act in the wake of these recent federal changes. State coverage requirements are a strong defense for the women in the respective states. According to recommendations by Sonfield (2017), all states could act to ensure that health plans cover the full list of contraceptive methods and services required under the federal guarantee. That includes services such as female sterilization procedures and many contraceptive products sold over the counter including emergency contraception. Sonfield goes on to assert, advocates and policymakers should seize on that popularity and build on the momentum from new state policies. They should put public pressure on insurance companies and employers to retain full coverage of contraceptive care. And they should set the groundwork for a new federal law to override what would be a harmful and unpopular decision by the Trump administration.

IV Selecting the evaluation criteria

Criteria that if met, would rectify or mitigate the problem include the utilitarian approach that states that actions are morally right if and only if they maximize the well-being or, alternatively, minimizes the bad. It moves beyond the scope of one’s own interest or beliefs and takes into account the interest of others. As such, restriction of contraception paid by employers should be eliminated, because it does not maximize the well-being of the woman. Nor does it minimize the bad for the woman and family in that the elimination of authority on ones on body creates the possibility for unwanted pregnancy. To rectify the problem, the option for employers to claim religious and moral exemptions should be eliminates. In evaluation of this criteria, the following where applied; Efficiency, Improved health outcomes, Equity.

As summarized by Sonfield (2014), a 2012 analysis by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, coverage of contraception without patient out-of-pocket costs should not raise insurance costs and is likely cost-saving. The federal government, the nation’s largest employer, reported no increase in costs after Congress required coverage of contraceptives for federal employees in 1998. Moreover, studies comparing the cost-effectiveness of contraceptives find that all methods save insurers money, after the costs of unintended pregnancies averted are accounted for with the most effective methods being among the most cost-effective ones. Additionally, according to Frost, Zolna and Frohwirth (2013) by helping women avoid unintended pregnancies, public funding for contraceptive services in 2010 resulted in net public savings of $10.5 billion, or $5.68 for every dollar spent. Those savings accrue to Medicaid for costs of pregnancy-related care and infant care.

Improved Health Outcomes

Contraception use results in unintended pregnancy and reduces therapeutic abortion. Adolescents who receive comprehensive counseling and face no cost barriers to contraception continue to use them long-term resulting in fewer unwanted pregnancies in that population. A no-cost contraceptive program in Colorado demonstrated an impressive 29% decrease in teen pregnancies among users compared with those relying on other methods (Batra, 2015). Unintended pregnancy may present an unacceptably high health risk for women who have underlying medical conditions, some of which are exacerbated by pregnancy. Abortion is often an indication of unintended pregnancy. The vast majority of abortions in the United States are performed safely and thus have very few negative health consequences for women. Some of the strongest evidence regarding the link between family planning and health outcomes supports the conclusion that helping women and couples to time their pregnancies and births directly improves birth outcomes. This is important because avoiding preterm birth (before 37 weeks’ gestation) and low birth weight (less than 5.5 pounds) significantly decreases the chances of infant mortality, birth complications and medical challenges for the baby at birth and beyond. Short birth intervals have been linked with numerous negative perinatal outcomes. (Kavanaugh & Anderson 2013).

Clearly this issue affects women only and it disproportionally affects minority and poor women. As stated previously, women with higher socioeconomic levels have less children than women with lesser incomes. Therefore, the burden of contraception restriction is placed heavier on women in lower socioeconomic class. Changing the current policy will also change the distribution of burdens and benefits in society, making it more equitable. This manifest the utilitarian approach, of being for the benefit of the greater good of women, not just the upper-echelon women in our society.

Constructing the Options

State government has to select and examine several options to rectify the problems on the federal government’s changes to the cost-sharing options for birth control portion of the Affordable care act. The alternatives include: comprehensive contraception coverage among all employers; government assuming the cost of contraception coverage; offer a religious or moral exemption for a much narrower set of explicitly religious non for-profit employers.

Comprehensive Contraception Coverage

Missouri could act to ensure that health plans cover the full list of contraceptive methods and services required under the federal guarantee, this includes; emergency contraception, IUD, female sterilization, oral contraception etc. Adding to this would be the elimination of cost sharing methods, which could be a potential barrier, such as copayments, deductibles and any other out-of-pocket costs. Sonfield (2017) even asserts that, states could help close gaps in coverage that have persisted even under the federal contraceptive coverage guarantee. They could require health plans to cover vasectomy and male condoms, Illinois, Maryland and Vermont have already required coverage for vasectomy. Other recommendations made by Sonfield include, States joining Maryland in requiring plans to cover over-the-counter contraception obtained without a prescription; currently, plans may require a prescription for these methods, which negates the advantages of over-the-counter status. States should put public pressure on insurance companies and employers to retain full coverage of contraceptive care. And they should set the groundwork for a new federal law to override what is a harmful and unpopular decision by the Trump administration.

Federal government could avoid imposing the cost on employers claiming a religious objection by instead taking on the burden itself. This option must be used only for employers who have true religious or moral objections to contraception, not just any employer who may choose to use the exemption to save expenses on pregnancy related care. The option to have women pay up front, with a reimbursement from the government later, should be excluded. As, this would create the same financial burden to the woman as having the woman cover the cost herself. While this option is not the most feasible cost wise due to the already strained system, it is better than the alternatives.

When granting exemptions to institutions, policymakers should limit them based on characteristics such as whether the institution is nonprofit or whether it is explicitly a house of worship such as a church, temple, or synagogue. Another option within this context is to allow the religious or moral exemption to be granted for services such as abortion and sterilization. However, religious and moral exemption needs to be strictly prohibited for services such as; counseling, information or referrals, to help ensure that patients understand their options, have informed consent, are not effectively abandoned by the health care system. Another option is to continue the stipulations in the original Obama era, Affordable care act. In this option Employers won’t have to arrange or pay for contraceptive coverage, but employees will still be able to access free contraceptive services at no cost, through a third party, as long as they maintain their employer plan. This ensures the religious liberty of actual religious organizations, not just and organization that has a moral objection which may not be in line with the beliefs of the actual woman.

This method does have the promise of being highly efficient and cost saving. This option will provide coverage of birth control as a comprehensive option for all. Our own federal government implemented this alternative and found no increase in cost, and high efficiency. The avoidance of unintended pregnancy, in itself, saves insurers money and as such provides evidence of the efficiency of this option. This option will naturally lead to improved health outcomes in that, contraception usage results in fewer unintended pregnancies and reduces therapeutic abortion. Also, increased autonomy over one’s own body is directly linked to increased feelings of self-esteem, leading to improved mental health and wellbeing. The criterion of equity is satisfied in that it more evenly distributes the playing field among women of color and women of lower socioeconomic levels. Satisfies the utilitarian value of being for the greater good.

This option would consist of the government taking on the cost of paying for birth control coverage for the individual whose employer has opted for the religious and moral exclusion. While this method would eliminate the woman being without coverage, it would not be highly efficient. Having the government of each state responsible for birth control coverage, would prove to put even more of a strain on an already over overwhelmed system. As with the previous option, this option will reduce unintended pregnancy. As previously stated, unintended pregnancy may present an unacceptably high health risk for women who have underlying medical conditions, some of which are exacerbated by pregnancy. Reduction of unintended pregnancy improves health outcomes for women. Changing the current policy to this alternative will change the distribution of burdens and benefits in society, making this an equitable alternative.

Efficiency in this alternative is high. Employers and insurers will still have to provide coverage for the individual regardless of moral or religious objections unless the employer is a strict place of worship. Improvements in health outcomes is high, as with the other alternative’s avoidance of unwanted pregnancy and abortion is the primary consequence. Finally, equity in this particular alternative may not be as simple. On one hand this alternative may deem equitable in that it More evenly distributes the playing field among women of color and women of lower socioeconomic levels. However, on the other hand, the employers who are unable to opt for the religious and moral objection may have the sense that their religious liberties are infringed upon. This would be an unintended consequence of this alternative.

Recommendation

Based on this policy analysis, the recommended alternative for the reformation on employer covered birth control is to provide comprehensive contraception coverage. This option has a high degree of efficiency, improved health outcomes, and proves to be equitable for the individual women. It eliminates the option that allows any employer to opt out of contraception coverage for religious or moral grounds, making it fair across the board in that it does not favor one type of employer. Women will have the added assurance of being able to plan for pregnancy rather than viewing pregnancy as something out of their control, leading to improved health outcomes. The societal distribution of opportunity will be more equitable for women of all racial and socioeconomic levels. This alternative satisfies the utilitarian value of being for the greater good of society as a whole.

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12.14: Sample Student Literary Analysis Essays

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Page ID 40514

Heather Ringo & Athena Kashyap
City College of San Francisco via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative

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The following examples are essays where student writers focused on close-reading a literary work.

While reading these examples, ask yourself the following questions:

What is the essay's thesis statement, and how do you know it is the thesis statement?
What is the main idea or topic sentence of each body paragraph, and how does it relate back to the thesis statement?
Where and how does each essay use evidence (quotes or paraphrase from the literature)?
What are some of the literary devices or structures the essays analyze or discuss?
How does each author structure their conclusion, and how does their conclusion differ from their introduction?

Example 1: Poetry

Victoria Morillo

Instructor Heather Ringo

3 August 2022

How Nguyen’s Structure Solidifies the Impact of Sexual Violence in “The Study”

Stripped of innocence, your body taken from you. No matter how much you try to block out the instance in which these two things occurred, memories surface and come back to haunt you. How does a person, a young boy , cope with an event that forever changes his life? Hieu Minh Nguyen deconstructs this very way in which an act of sexual violence affects a survivor. In his poem, “The Study,” the poem's speaker recounts the year in which his molestation took place, describing how his memory filters in and out. Throughout the poem, Nguyen writes in free verse, permitting a structural liberation to become the foundation for his message to shine through. While he moves the readers with this poignant narrative, Nguyen effectively conveys the resulting internal struggles of feeling alone and unseen.

The speaker recalls his experience with such painful memory through the use of specific punctuation choices. Just by looking at the poem, we see that the first period doesn’t appear until line 14. It finally comes after the speaker reveals to his readers the possible, central purpose for writing this poem: the speaker's molestation. In the first half, the poem makes use of commas, em dashes, and colons, which lends itself to the idea of the speaker stringing along all of these details to make sense of this time in his life. If reading the poem following the conventions of punctuation, a sense of urgency is present here, as well. This is exemplified by the lack of periods to finalize a thought; and instead, Nguyen uses other punctuation marks to connect them. Serving as another connector of thoughts, the two em dashes give emphasis to the role memory plays when the speaker discusses how “no one [had] a face” during that time (Nguyen 9-11). He speaks in this urgent manner until the 14th line, and when he finally gets it off his chest, the pace of the poem changes, as does the more frequent use of the period. This stream-of-consciousness-like section when juxtaposed with the latter half of the poem, causes readers to slow down and pay attention to the details. It also splits the poem in two: a section that talks of the fogginess of memory then transitions into one that remembers it all.

In tandem with the fluctuating nature of memory, the utilization of line breaks and word choice help reflect the damage the molestation has had. Within the first couple of lines of the poem, the poem demands the readers’ attention when the line breaks from “floating” to “dead” as the speaker describes his memory of Little Billy (Nguyen 1-4). This line break averts the readers’ expectation of the direction of the narrative and immediately shifts the tone of the poem. The break also speaks to the effect his trauma has ingrained in him and how “[f]or the longest time,” his only memory of that year revolves around an image of a boy’s death. In a way, the speaker sees himself in Little Billy; or perhaps, he’s representative of the tragic death of his boyhood, how the speaker felt so “dead” after enduring such a traumatic experience, even referring to himself as a “ghost” that he tries to evict from his conscience (Nguyen 24). The feeling that a part of him has died is solidified at the very end of the poem when the speaker describes himself as a nine-year-old boy who’s been “fossilized,” forever changed by this act (Nguyen 29). By choosing words associated with permanence and death, the speaker tries to recreate the atmosphere (for which he felt trapped in) in order for readers to understand the loneliness that came as a result of his trauma. With the assistance of line breaks, more attention is drawn to the speaker's words, intensifying their importance, and demanding to be felt by the readers.

Most importantly, the speaker expresses eloquently, and so heartbreakingly, about the effect sexual violence has on a person. Perhaps what seems to be the most frustrating are the people who fail to believe survivors of these types of crimes. This is evident when he describes “how angry” the tenants were when they filled the pool with cement (Nguyen 4). They seem to represent how people in the speaker's life were dismissive of his assault and who viewed his tragedy as a nuisance of some sorts. This sentiment is bookended when he says, “They say, give us details , so I give them my body. / They say, give us proof , so I give them my body,” (Nguyen 25-26). The repetition of these two lines reinforces the feeling many feel in these scenarios, as they’re often left to deal with trying to make people believe them, or to even see them.

It’s important to recognize how the structure of this poem gives the speaker space to express the pain he’s had to carry for so long. As a characteristic of free verse, the poem doesn’t follow any structured rhyme scheme or meter; which in turn, allows him to not have any constraints in telling his story the way he wants to. The speaker has the freedom to display his experience in a way that evades predictability and engenders authenticity of a story very personal to him. As readers, we abandon anticipating the next rhyme, and instead focus our attention to the other ways, like his punctuation or word choice, in which he effectively tells his story. The speaker recognizes that some part of him no longer belongs to himself, but by writing “The Study,” he shows other survivors that they’re not alone and encourages hope that eventually, they will be freed from the shackles of sexual violence.

Works Cited

Nguyen, Hieu Minh. “The Study” Poets.Org. Academy of American Poets, Coffee House Press, 2018, https://poets.org/poem/study-0 .

Example 2: Fiction

Todd Goodwin

Professor Stan Matyshak

Advanced Expository Writing

Sept. 17, 20—

Poe’s “Usher”: A Mirror of the Fall of the House of Humanity

Right from the outset of the grim story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Edgar Allan Poe enmeshes us in a dark, gloomy, hopeless world, alienating his characters and the reader from any sort of physical or psychological norm where such values as hope and happiness could possibly exist. He fatalistically tells the story of how a man (the narrator) comes from the outside world of hope, religion, and everyday society and tries to bring some kind of redeeming happiness to his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher, who not only has physically and psychologically wasted away but is entrapped in a dilapidated house of ever-looming terror with an emaciated and deranged twin sister. Roderick Usher embodies the wasting away of what once was vibrant and alive, and his house of “insufferable gloom” (273), which contains his morbid sister, seems to mirror or reflect this fear of death and annihilation that he most horribly endures. A close reading of the story reveals that Poe uses mirror images, or reflections, to contribute to the fatalistic theme of “Usher”: each reflection serves to intensify an already prevalent tone of hopelessness, darkness, and fatalism.

It could be argued that the house of Roderick Usher is a “house of mirrors,” whose unpleasant and grim reflections create a dark and hopeless setting. For example, the narrator first approaches “the melancholy house of Usher on a dark and soundless day,” and finds a building which causes him a “sense of insufferable gloom,” which “pervades his spirit and causes an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an undiscerned dreariness of thought” (273). The narrator then optimistically states: “I reflected that a mere different arrangement of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression” (274). But the narrator then sees the reflection of the house in the tarn and experiences a “shudder even more thrilling than before” (274). Thus the reader begins to realize that the narrator cannot change or stop the impending doom that will befall the house of Usher, and maybe humanity. The story cleverly plays with the word reflection : the narrator sees a physical reflection that leads him to a mental reflection about Usher’s surroundings.

The narrator’s disillusionment by such grim reflection continues in the story. For example, he describes Roderick Usher’s face as distinct with signs of old strength but lost vigor: the remains of what used to be. He describes the house as a once happy and vibrant place, which, like Roderick, lost its vitality. Also, the narrator describes Usher’s hair as growing wild on his rather obtrusive head, which directly mirrors the eerie moss and straw covering the outside of the house. The narrator continually longs to see these bleak reflections as a dream, for he states: “Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building” (276). He does not want to face the reality that Usher and his home are doomed to fall, regardless of what he does.

Although there are almost countless examples of these mirror images, two others stand out as important. First, Roderick and his sister, Madeline, are twins. The narrator aptly states just as he and Roderick are entombing Madeline that there is “a striking similitude between brother and sister” (288). Indeed, they are mirror images of each other. Madeline is fading away psychologically and physically, and Roderick is not too far behind! The reflection of “doom” that these two share helps intensify and symbolize the hopelessness of the entire situation; thus, they further develop the fatalistic theme. Second, in the climactic scene where Madeline has been mistakenly entombed alive, there is a pairing of images and sounds as the narrator tries to calm Roderick by reading him a romance story. Events in the story simultaneously unfold with events of the sister escaping her tomb. In the story, the hero breaks out of the coffin. Then, in the story, the dragon’s shriek as he is slain parallels Madeline’s shriek. Finally, the story tells of the clangor of a shield, matched by the sister’s clanging along a metal passageway. As the suspense reaches its climax, Roderick shrieks his last words to his “friend,” the narrator: “Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door” (296).

Roderick, who slowly falls into insanity, ironically calls the narrator the “Madman.” We are left to reflect on what Poe means by this ironic twist. Poe’s bleak and dark imagery, and his use of mirror reflections, seem only to intensify the hopelessness of “Usher.” We can plausibly conclude that, indeed, the narrator is the “Madman,” for he comes from everyday society, which is a place where hope and faith exist. Poe would probably argue that such a place is opposite to the world of Usher because a world where death is inevitable could not possibly hold such positive values. Therefore, just as Roderick mirrors his sister, the reflection in the tarn mirrors the dilapidation of the house, and the story mirrors the final actions before the death of Usher. “The Fall of the House of Usher” reflects Poe’s view that humanity is hopelessly doomed.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Fall of the House of Usher.” 1839. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library . 1995. Web. 1 July 2012. < http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/PoeFall.html >.

Example 3: Poetry

Amy Chisnell

Professor Laura Neary

Writing and Literature

April 17, 20—

Don’t Listen to the Egg!: A Close Reading of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”

“You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,” said Alice. “Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called ‘Jabberwocky’?”

“Let’s hear it,” said Humpty Dumpty. “I can explain all the poems that ever were invented—and a good many that haven’t been invented just yet.” (Carroll 164)

In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass , Humpty Dumpty confidently translates (to a not so confident Alice) the complicated language of the poem “Jabberwocky.” The words of the poem, though nonsense, aptly tell the story of the slaying of the Jabberwock. Upon finding “Jabberwocky” on a table in the looking-glass room, Alice is confused by the strange words. She is quite certain that “ somebody killed something ,” but she does not understand much more than that. When later she encounters Humpty Dumpty, she seizes the opportunity at having the knowledgeable egg interpret—or translate—the poem. Since Humpty Dumpty professes to be able to “make a word work” for him, he is quick to agree. Thus he acts like a New Critic who interprets the poem by performing a close reading of it. Through Humpty’s interpretation of the first stanza, however, we see the poem’s deeper comment concerning the practice of interpreting poetry and literature in general—that strict analytical translation destroys the beauty of a poem. In fact, Humpty Dumpty commits the “heresy of paraphrase,” for he fails to understand that meaning cannot be separated from the form or structure of the literary work.

Of the 71 words found in “Jabberwocky,” 43 have no known meaning. They are simply nonsense. Yet through this nonsensical language, the poem manages not only to tell a story but also gives the reader a sense of setting and characterization. One feels, rather than concretely knows, that the setting is dark, wooded, and frightening. The characters, such as the Jubjub bird, the Bandersnatch, and the doomed Jabberwock, also appear in the reader’s head, even though they will not be found in the local zoo. Even though most of the words are not real, the reader is able to understand what goes on because he or she is given free license to imagine what the words denote and connote. Simply, the poem’s nonsense words are the meaning.

Therefore, when Humpty interprets “Jabberwocky” for Alice, he is not doing her any favors, for he actually misreads the poem. Although the poem in its original is constructed from nonsense words, by the time Humpty is done interpreting it, it truly does not make any sense. The first stanza of the original poem is as follows:

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogroves,

An the mome raths outgrabe. (Carroll 164)

If we replace, however, the nonsense words of “Jabberwocky” with Humpty’s translated words, the effect would be something like this:

’Twas four o’clock in the afternoon, and the lithe and slimy badger-lizard-corkscrew creatures

Did go round and round and make holes in the grass-plot round the sun-dial:

All flimsy and miserable were the shabby-looking birds

with mop feathers,

And the lost green pigs bellowed-sneezed-whistled.

By translating the poem in such a way, Humpty removes the charm or essence—and the beauty, grace, and rhythm—from the poem. The poetry is sacrificed for meaning. Humpty Dumpty commits the heresy of paraphrase. As Cleanth Brooks argues, “The structure of a poem resembles that of a ballet or musical composition. It is a pattern of resolutions and balances and harmonizations” (203). When the poem is left as nonsense, the reader can easily imagine what a “slithy tove” might be, but when Humpty tells us what it is, he takes that imaginative license away from the reader. The beauty (if that is the proper word) of “Jabberwocky” is in not knowing what the words mean, and yet understanding. By translating the poem, Humpty takes that privilege from the reader. In addition, Humpty fails to recognize that meaning cannot be separated from the structure itself: the nonsense poem reflects this literally—it means “nothing” and achieves this meaning by using “nonsense” words.

Furthermore, the nonsense words Carroll chooses to use in “Jabberwocky” have a magical effect upon the reader; the shadowy sound of the words create the atmosphere, which may be described as a trance-like mood. When Alice first reads the poem, she says it seems to fill her head “with ideas.” The strange-sounding words in the original poem do give one ideas. Why is this? Even though the reader has never heard these words before, he or she is instantly aware of the murky, mysterious mood they set. In other words, diction operates not on the denotative level (the dictionary meaning) but on the connotative level (the emotion(s) they evoke). Thus “Jabberwocky” creates a shadowy mood, and the nonsense words are instrumental in creating this mood. Carroll could not have simply used any nonsense words.

For example, let us change the “dark,” “ominous” words of the first stanza to “lighter,” more “comic” words:

’Twas mearly, and the churly pells

Did bimble and ringle in the tink;

All timpy were the brimbledimps,

And the bip plips outlink.

Shifting the sounds of the words from dark to light merely takes a shift in thought. To create a specific mood using nonsense words, one must create new words from old words that convey the desired mood. In “Jabberwocky,” Carroll mixes “slimy,” a grim idea, “lithe,” a pliable image, to get a new adjective: “slithy” (a portmanteau word). In this translation, brighter words were used to get a lighter effect. “Mearly” is a combination of “morning” and “early,” and “ringle” is a blend of “ring” and "dingle.” The point is that “Jabberwocky’s” nonsense words are created specifically to convey this shadowy or mysterious mood and are integral to the “meaning.”

Consequently, Humpty’s rendering of the poem leaves the reader with a completely different feeling than does the original poem, which provided us with a sense of ethereal mystery, of a dark and foreign land with exotic creatures and fantastic settings. The mysteriousness is destroyed by Humpty’s literal paraphrase of the creatures and the setting; by doing so, he has taken the beauty away from the poem in his attempt to understand it. He has committed the heresy of paraphrase: “If we allow ourselves to be misled by it [this heresy], we distort the relation of the poem to its ‘truth’… we split the poem between its ‘form’ and its ‘content’” (Brooks 201). Humpty Dumpty’s ultimate demise might be seen to symbolize the heretical split between form and content: as a literary creation, Humpty Dumpty is an egg, a well-wrought urn of nonsense. His fall from the wall cracks him and separates the contents from the container, and not even all the King’s men can put the scrambled egg back together again!

Through the odd characters of a little girl and a foolish egg, “Jabberwocky” suggests a bit of sage advice about reading poetry, advice that the New Critics built their theories on. The importance lies not solely within strict analytical translation or interpretation, but in the overall effect of the imagery and word choice that evokes a meaning inseparable from those literary devices. As Archibald MacLeish so aptly writes: “A poem should not mean / But be.” Sometimes it takes a little nonsense to show us the sense in something.

Brooks, Cleanth. The Well-Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry . 1942. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1956. Print.

Carroll, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass. Alice in Wonderland . 2nd ed. Ed. Donald J. Gray. New York: Norton, 1992. Print.

MacLeish, Archibald. “Ars Poetica.” The Oxford Book of American Poetry . Ed. David Lehman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. 385–86. Print.

Attribution

Sample Essay 1 received permission from Victoria Morillo to publish, licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International ( CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 )
Sample Essays 2 and 3 adapted from Cordell, Ryan and John Pennington. "2.5: Student Sample Papers" from Creating Literary Analysis. 2012. Licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported ( CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 )

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Policy Analysis

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If you want to achieve the goals and objectives of your business or organization, you have to develop policies that will allow you to guide your members in the direction that you would like to take. Leading the workforce can be a very tedious task especially when it comes to working together for a common goal in consideration of the complexity of the operations of the business.

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You do not need to worry about this matter as creating a policy analysis will allow you to come up with the most appropriate and relevant analysis that can help you get particular milestones for the organization. Just like when making an internal audit SWOT analysis , ensure that you will be aware of the basic guidelines and strategies that will allow you to develop the best policy analysis for your business.

Policy Analysis Example

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A list of downloadable policy analysis template examples in PDF are available for you to browse through from this post. We have put together these documents so that you can have references and guides once you plan to develop your own policy analysis. Make sure to look into these examples so that it will be more efficient for you to create the specified document.

Policy Analysis Discussion Flow and Layout Example

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Policy Analysis Paper Structure Example

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Policy Analysis Development Framework

A policy analysis can be done by different entities like government bodies, medical and health facilities, academic institutions, businesses, and organizations. Even if there are different groups that can make use of this document, the framework of its development and implementation is most likely the same. Here are the basic steps that you can follow if you want to execute a simple policy analysis:

Be organized when starting the development of a policy analysis. Gather all the items, references, and other materials that you think can be helpful in the creation of a credible and highly usable policy analysis. We recommend you to prepare organizational tools like checklists and outlines as these items can be very efficient when it comes to listing down all the requirements and process flow of your organization’s own policy analysis document.
Identify the purpose or the reason on why there is a need for your organization to execute a policy analysis. You have to be aware of the objective of the undertaking so you can easily identify the factors and elements that you need to consider as well as the impacts that you must prepare for. Knowing what the policy analysis is all about can also help you develop action plans that are relevant to the achievement of your corporate or business aspirations.
You have to define the problem at hand and the ways on how the policy can be of help to eliminate the negative effects of the problem that you have specified. There should be a thorough evaluation of the alignment of the policy with the results that you would like to get for you to reduce threats and risks from existing or even recurring business problems.
Assess the objectives of the policy and identify whether these objectives are good for the policy’s target audience or population. You have to consider the timeliness of the policy implementation as well as its relevance to the operations of the business and the daily work processes where the members of the organization are involved.
Come up with a SWOT analysis. In comparison to a hospital SWOT analysis , your SWOT analysis for your policy assessment must also focus on both external and internal factors. Ensure that you will have metrics for evaluation so that the results of your SWOT analysis can be aligned with the standards of the business and the things that you would like to achieve.
Once a particular policy has already been selected for implementation, you have to study the impacts and effects that it has brought to the business. You have to ensure that you will have a continuous policy evaluation and assessment so you can identify whether the specific policy is really good for the business and that it can truly contribute to the growth of the business and its operations. You have to list down all the implications of the policy so you can assess on whether there is a need to change it or just maintain its implementation.
Lastly, think of other policies that can serve as your alternatives whenever your initial policy did not work. You have to ensure that you have backups especially considering that these policies can actually affect the productivity of the workforce, the direction of the business, and the efficiency of your operations. Moreover, the policies that you implement can also impact the culture within the environment of your business.

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Policy Analysis Principles

A detailed SWOT analysis can provide a lot of benefits to any organization as it can thoroughly discuss the internal and external factors that contribute to the successes and failures of the business. This is why you should also make sure that your policy analysis is well-formulated, properly formatted, and comprehensive. You have to consider a variety of principles that will allow you to polish the policy analysis that you will come up with. A few of the principles that you always have to remind yourself with whenever you plan to create and/or implement a policy analysis are listed below.

Make sure that the policies that you are going to analyze are well-defined. In this manner, you can ensure that the solutions or help that the policy can provide you with can be proven as potentially effective. This will help the implementation processes of the analysis become smooth flowing.
You need to come up with the results that you want to achieve. Otherwise, the policies that you will develop will not be used for anything. There should be an end picture on your mind so that it can serve as a guide when it comes to the development of the policy that you want to execute. Doing this will allow you to develop solutions for the problems, issues, and concerns that you have at hand.
It is essential for you to remember that you are developing an analysis. Hence, you should not focus on just the positive or negative areas of the policy usage. You should look into all the contributing factors that result to the effectiveness of the policy, or the lack thereof. You have to present an analysis, not provide a concrete decision in behalf of your target audience. However, remember that you may also sometimes be required to provide recommendations and suggestions based on your own perception of the results that you have come up with.
Do not restrain yourself within a single box. You have to think of different policy actions that you can execute based on the items that you want to realize. Remember that policy analysis processes are created for you to come up with the best option for your business or organization. Hence, focusing on just one policy will lessen your selection if your initial policy choice is found to be not as effective or as efficient as it is expected to be.
Resilience and being adaptive are characteristics that you should always have whenever you plan to develop a policy analysis. You have to learn how to deal with any changes and uncertainties as long as it is for the betterment of the business, its stakeholders, its operations, and all the other areas in which internal and external corporate touch points are present and can be affected.
Always check the clarity of your policy analysis discussion. It is important for your facts to always be updated and accurate. More so, you must have firsthand information so that you can ensure the precision of all the details that you will include in your policy analysis presentation. This is the reason why most policy analysis documents are simple, direct to the point, and specific.
Not all policy analysis work the same for every establishment, organization, or business. You have to keep in mind that there are no perfect policy analysis. There are changes and differences that you may observe especially when it comes to the usage of policy analysis processes and procedures that are based on those that are used by other entities. With this, you have to ensure that the policy analysis that you will create is fit with the operations of your business, the needs of your workforce, and the vision that you have for your company.

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Planning to Implement a Policy Analysis?

An HR SWOT analysis , policy analysis, and other kinds of policy documents are only testaments that it is imperative for businesses to evaluate and assess different areas of its management and operations. For your company to continue growing, you have to be realistic when it comes to identifying your concerns and issues. You should also establish the description of the current condition of the business as well as the areas of improvement that you would like to focus on.

Developing a policy analysis can help you either direct or redirect your business toward achieving its goals. More so, it can promote organization and a healthy relationship within your operations. Do you want to develop a policy analysis for your business? Here are some of the guidelines and tips that you can find useful once you already start the creation of the specified document:

Make sure that you will establish a credible, measurable, and objective criteria for your analysis. It is essential for you to have accurate measures that will allow you to select the best policy for your business for different instances and circumstances.
Again, it is essential for you to come up with backups and/or alternatives. More so, you should be open to change your policies especially at times when there is a need to update the things that your organization follows. Remove the policies that do not work based on your analysis and change them with new ones that have a high potential of helping the business.
Use templates and examples as your references. Even if there are different kinds of policy analysis documents, it will still be helpful if you will have references when it comes to formatting your discussion. These items can also be of help in terms of determining the information that you should look into when making your own policy analysis. Once you already have a set of policy analysis examples, it will be easier for you to identify the factors and elements that should be included in the document that you plan to make.
Evaluate the final draft of your policy analysis and look into any mistakes, errors, and inaccuracies that may still be observed in the content and format of the document. This is very important as the quality of your policy analysis can reflect your standards when it comes to identifying the best policy for your business and the processes that you have immersed in for the particular activity.

Do not forget to look into the policy analysis examples that we have listed in this post. Download any, if not all, of these examples and use them accordingly so that you can be well-guided in the development of the policy analysis document that you need.

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PDF GUIDELINES FOR SUCCESSFUL POLICY ANALYSES
GUIDELINES FOR SUCCESSFUL POLICY ANALYSES. • Start with an overview of recommendations, methodology, and a roadmap, not with background material. • Create chapter breakdowns according to findings and recommendations, not according to the steps in your research journey. • Specify your criteria and assumptions and justify them when ...
How to Write a Policy Analysis Paper Step-by-Step
A policy analysis paper example serves as a valuable learning tool for students by providing a concrete model to follow and reference when undertaking their own analysis assignments. ... Analysis papers typically aim to inform policymakers, stakeholders, and the public about the complexities of a given issue, explore alternative courses of ...
Policy Analysis Essays: Examples, Topics, & Outlines
Policy Analysis Governments and Organizations. PAGES 2 WORDS 604. Patton (1990) identifies six steps for policy analysis. Firstly, we must verify and define the details of the problem. This initial step ensures that objectives are clarified and any ambiguity resolved. Secondly, the evaluation criteria are created.
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All past PAEs are on reserve in the KSG library and a sample of these is available on line in the PAE Guide located on the PAE web page. You can also find there a link to the list of 1998-99 PAE Award nominees. Finally, you will undoubtedly be shown examples of good work in your PAC seminars.
PDF Tips for Writing Policy Papers
Policy papers may also take the form of a briefing paper, which typically provides a decision maker with an overview of an issue or problem, targeted analysis, and, often, actionable recommendations. Briefing books and white papers often accompany an oral briefing that targets key findings or recommendations.
How to Write a Policy Assignment
Writing Policy Assignments. Successful policy assignments are focused, well-researched, analytical, organized, and concise. Therefore, it is important to take time to define the issue, understand the context of the issue, and seek out policy alternatives prior to identifying a recommended course of action. Focused Issue.
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The policy analysis essay is a staple for almost any college program in political science, social sciences, health sciences or the humanities. ... You should be familiar with the issue the policy deals with. For example, if you are writing an essay on health reform, you should have a good understanding of the current health system, its history ...
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Introduction Policy analysis is a profound opportunity that experts use to evaluate the ethics and rationality of a policy. The process is beyond making final decisions, but rather the impact of enacting a reform on the larger community. The persons of interest and opponents also benefit from the procedure because their oversight role results ...
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Research and identify possible policy options. You can do this by reviewing research literature, conducting an environmental scan, and surveying best practices to understand what other communities are doing. 2. Describe the possible policy options. As you conduct your policy analysis, pay attention to the health impact, cost of implementation ...
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Policy Analysis Essay Topics. Clio has taught education courses at the college level and has a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction. Learning to offer a good policy analysis is key for students who ...
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Public Policy Analysis Model. 1. Public policy is a set of laws that are enacted to reach a specific goal. These goals are genuinely made to be for the interest of the greater good, and the majority of people. For example, the policy for red light cameras in Rochester was enacted to help reduce the accident rates from people running red lights.
Policy Paper
The basic elements of a policy paper include: Description of the context and importance of the problem. It is helpful to careful define the problem and frame it as a specific question to be answered. Discussion of a range of policy options. These are the choices for addressing the policy problem. Criteria for judging policy choices.
Healthcare Policy Analysis Paper: [Essay Example], 434 words
Overview of the healthcare policy. The healthcare policy under scrutiny was introduced in 2010 with the goal of expanding healthcare coverage, controlling healthcare costs, and improving the overall quality of care. Key provisions include the establishment of health insurance marketplaces, expansion of Medicaid, and regulations on insurance ...
PDF What Makes a Good "Policy Paper"? Ten Examples
would find in the average academic journal. In spite of this, only 10% of the sample were obvious policy papers! So the tendency among researchers to forego policy analysis seems to be more the rule than the exception. Of the 40 pieces with policy-relevant titles, only 30 proved to have actual policy relevance on closer examination.
Policy Analysis and Evaluation
Evaluation of Alternative Policy. It is clear that the trade policies positively transformed the UAE economy to great heights, but it has also divided the greater native population, isolating them to the status of a helpless population. Through the eyes of Malaysia, one is able to get a good example of the alternative policy.
Health Care Policy Analysis
Essay Example: Introduction Women's reproductive rights have been an ongoing issue the United States has dealt with for decades. ... This policy analysis will examine the relationship between politicizing the reproductive rights of women coupled with the rights of employers to refuse coverage for birth control and the policies surrounding ...
12.14: Sample Student Literary Analysis Essays
Page ID. Heather Ringo & Athena Kashyap. City College of San Francisco via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative. Table of contents. Example 1: Poetry. Example 2: Fiction. Example 3: Poetry. Attribution. The following examples are essays where student writers focused on close-reading a literary work.
Social Policy Analysis Essay Examples
Comparative Social Policy Analysis: China's and the United States Abortion Laws. Introduction Abortion is a complex worldwide problem because it is at the nexus of individual choice, public health, and social values. This article explores a comparative policy study of abortion laws in China and the United States, two powerful countries.
Policy Analysis
Size: A4, US. Download. A list of downloadable policy analysis template examples in PDF are available for you to browse through from this post. We have put together these documents so that you can have references and guides once you plan to develop your own policy analysis. Make sure to look into these examples so that it will be more efficient ...
45 Most Interesting Policy Essay Topics to Stand Out Among Peers
1. Does national debt pose a threat to the country? Should the government be held responsible for increasing the national debt? 2. Should the government spend part of its budget on foreign aid? 3. Should the state spend part of its budget on space exploration? Review of credible sources on the topic. 4.
Policy analysis paper final
2. POLICY PORTFOLIO: SB 1168 2 Policy Analysis Introductory Paragraph This policy analysis will be examining a bill that was proposed in the senate on January 13, 2015: SB1168, "Family day homes and child day centers; local government to report business licenses issued." This bill is an amendment that would make children under the age of six count towards the number of children being ...

How to Write a Policy Analysis Paper in 6 Easy Steps (+Examples)

What Is a Policy Analysis Paper

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Policy Analysis Paper Purpose

Topic Ideas for Policy Analysis Paper

How to Structure a Policy Analysis Paper

How to Write a Policy Analysis Paper

Understanding the Policy Issue

Defining the Scope and Purpose

Gathering Data and Evidence

Analyzing the Policy

Developing Recommendations

Writing and Communicating Your Analysis

Policy Analysis Paper Example

How Short Is Your Deadline?

What Is a Policy Analysis Paper Outline?

Related Articles

How to Write a Policy Assignment

Reading and Analyzing Policy

Types of Policy Assignments

Proposed structure

Policy Brief (Briefing Note)

Make a plan

Read and take notes

Assess policy within course context

Reading an Official Plan

Reading a Policy Brief

Focused issue

Example: Effective issue definition 1

Example: Ineffective issue definition 1

Using research

Demonstrating analysis

Organized, concise, and clear writing

Policy Analysis

What is policy analysis?

Why is policy analysis important?

Who should you involve in your policy analysis?

How do you conduct a policy analysis?

Exit Notification / Disclaimer Policy

A Political Science Guide

Policy Paper

Policy Paper Components

Policy Paper Examples

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Healthcare Policy Analysis Paper

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Policy Analysis and Evaluation Compare & Contrast Essay

Health Care Policy Analysis

Introduction

Problem Statement

Existing Policy

IV Selecting the evaluation criteria

Improved Health Outcomes

Constructing the Options

Comprehensive Contraception Coverage

Recommendation

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12.14: Sample Student Literary Analysis Essays

Example 1: Poetry

Example 2: Fiction

Example 3: Poetry

Attribution

Social Policy Analysis Essays

Policy Analysis

Policy Analysis Example

Policy Analysis Discussion Flow and Layout Example

Policy Analysis Framework Example

Policy Analysis Paper Structure Example

Policy Analysis Development Framework

Policy Analysis Template and Toolkit Example

Policy Analysis Format and Content Guidelines Example

Policy Analysis Principles