Page 190 - Enabling National Initiatives to Take Democracy Beyond Elections

188 A Project of the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF) Step 5: Writing and Review Writing recommendations is an iterative process.You should start from basic ideas and add more detail step-by-step. This means that at each point, the group can reflect back and add clarity to the purpose of a recommendation before the split into groups again and work in parallel. 15 Collaborative writing The task of writing an entire recommendations report that can be supported by the group requires parallel work. Participants will need to split up, refine recommendations and ultimately write them into their report at the same time. There are different methods for this but most centre on the use of templates that ensure each recommendation is in the same format. This is can be as simple as 3 headings: recommendation (approx. 2-line summary of what they want to say) rationale (longer explanation of why with a focus on clarity of intent), and any sources or evidence used to support the recommendation. These headings focus on being precise with language noting that the more complexity introduced into a recommendation the higher the chance of it being misinterpreted. Any template should be a ‘light touch’ to avoid being leading – the example here is just 5 words suggesting the type of content.