Public Policy Writing That Matters

You should obtain a copy of this book if you’re looking for a concise, yet technically sound masterpiece in writing with the audience in mind, written by your favorite professor that gladly met you in free-speaking office hours at a bar or a coffeehouse.David Chrisinger wrote an excellent resource that changes paradigms and emphases for the public policy writer in the first edition of “Public Policy Writing That Matters.” In it, his credentials as author, professor of public policy writing, and career in communications with GAO were on full display. The backstory of organizational change within “fed accounting” around communications was enthralling for any policy wordsmith. In the second edition, the writing center director, all-around meaning-maker, and aider and abettor of meaning-making shines forth with the comfort of experience and the need to be more direct, as well as personal.Where the first edition was a great reference material, technically sound, punchy, and instructed policy writers on how to reach the readership, the second edition is all that plus a dose of humanism; both in its delivery, by sharing some personal elements that give a warmth not found in the first edition, and in its needed reminders that public policy writing is for those won’t forget to stay human, respecting the dignity of other people that they work with and write about. In short, it reminds us why we give a damn.