Briefing Note Assignment
BriefingNote Assignment
Please note that this is a scaffolded assignment. In other words, it will be broken into smaller assignments to give you an opportunity to seek feedback from the instructor during the research and writing process.
These smaller assignmentswill be worth 10% of your overall mark, and the final Briefing Note will be worth 15% of your overall mark (for a total of 25% for the assignment). Further instructions as well as a Briefing
Note Template will be provided by the instructor.
The final ‘product’ that you arerequiredtosubmit isa briefing note for the use of theCanadianDeputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Deputy Minister will be attending a meeting with their counterpart in the
United States, as part of a bi-annual summit in Washington, DC. As a junior officer working for the Foreign Policy section of Global Affairs Canada, you have beentasked with providing a briefing note for the Deputy Ministeron one aspect of the U.S-Canada relationship.
1.The section of Global Affairs Canada that you work for is ‘Foreign Policy’, so while you may deal with trade, international development, or cultural affairs, the primary concern of your section is diplomatic relations.
2.The Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM) has tasked you with drafting a briefing notethat explains three things:
a.The current state of the U.S.-Canada relationship in your area of expertise
b.The history of your area of expertise; you need to provide the DM with somecontext(background information)
c.Your informed opinion about how Canada should approach its upcoming talks with the U.S.in regard to your area of expertise
3.Your area of expertise should be in one of the following areas: Fishing rights
in [choosea contested region]; regulation of American media in Canada; refugees c
rossing from the U.S to Canada at land borders; the use of drones and surveillance along the U.S.-Canada border; offshore resource extractionin [choosea contestedregion]; Canadian defence spending in relation to its NATO commitments.
If you wish to choose another ‘area of expertise’, you must obtainpermission
from the instructor.
4.Although staff in the ADM’s office will clean up your memorandum and remove any citations (frankly, the Minister doesn’t have time to read them), your briefing note must containcitations. Although this is not a formal research paper, it has many of the requirements of a research paper.
5.Here are the requirements of your briefing note:
a.The briefing note itself (independent of title page and bibliography) should contain1000 to 1500 words.
b.You must include footnotes and a bibliography. You must use the17thedition of The Chicago Manual of Stylewhen completingthe citations forthis assignment.The Langara Library website has a detailed guide to using Chicago Style.
c.You must include a title page.
d.There should be page numbers located in the top right corner of each page (except the title page).
e.You must use at least 6 sources.
I .One source should be a newspaper article; you will use this article toexplain the
current state-of-affairs in your area of expertise orprovide the Minister with some
modern context that they are familiar with.
ii.One source should be a primary source other than a newspaper article, such as a
speech, a memorandum, a policy document, or a government study. This source
should come from a government or university website.
iii.The remaining four (or more) sources must be from scholarly secondary sources
(scholarly eBooks or Journals).
All scholarly sources should come from the Langara
Library website; exceptions must be approved by the instructor.
