Guidelines for Writing Working Papers

Committee members worked together to examine their criterion, components, examples of evidence and related data. Their work was captured in various forms including outlines, notes, or descriptions.

As the self study progressed, members were asked to select the most salient and compelling evidence and to summarize it in working papers.   Members were to write as much as they thought necessary to convey the major points, but to keep in mind that the end-goal was to convert committee papers into “one voice” and to keep the report to a reasonable length.  

Some general suggestions for writing the working papers included:

• Provide a balance between description and evaluation.
• Use simple formatting: bullets; headings; minimize indents and tabs.
• Avoid formal citation styles; use parentheses or simple notations.
• Rough drafts are fine.

 Some sample ideas to help facilitate the committee's task were to:

• Step back, be holistic and think about the content and ideas that emerged in the committee discussions.
• Focus on only a major theme or two.
• Strive to write a narrative describing the gist of what content came out of the process.
• Capture the spirit of the ideas that surfaced from their group