Policy Writing 101 with Stimson Center

A free policy writing workshop at Trinity Washington University, led by the Stimson Center. Open to all Trinity students, first come, first served.

• Monday, November 9, 2026
• 3:00 to 5:00 PM ET
• In person — AC 401, Trinity Washington University, Washington, DC
• Free to attend — 30 places
• Led by Evan Cooper, Research Analyst, Stimson Center

A strong seminar paper and a strong policy memo are not the same document. One is built to show what you know; the other is built to help a busy person make a decision. Students who write well for their professors are often surprised to find that the habits earning them good grades — the long build-up, the survey of the literature, the carefully hedged conclusion — work against them the moment the reader is a policymaker.

This workshop closes that gap, then puts it into practice. Evan Cooper opens with a short presentation on how policy writing departs from academic writing, and on how to reach the people who commission and act on it. Students then work in small groups through the real stages of a report: choosing a topic worth writing about, researching it, and building an annotated outline. You leave with that outline in hand, a piece of work you can finish on your own.

The session is part of the workshop series CGS runs each fall for the Global Governance Fellowship, a two-semester program for undergraduates at Trinity. Fellows learn directly from practitioners, then spend the spring as delegates to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, where they present a policy brief of their own. This is the workshop where that brief starts to take shape, and it is why we have opened the session to the wider Trinity student body. Global Affairs and Public Affairs students are especially welcome, whether or not they are fellows.

About Evan Cooper

Evan Cooper is a Research Analyst in the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center, where his work focuses on improving US diplomatic engagement through overlooked areas of shared interest, including cultural diplomacy, healthcare, and commerce. He was previously a junior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s New American Engagement Initiative, and he holds an MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University and a BA in Political Science from Chapman University. The workshop is free, but places go in the order they are booked, so please register in advance.