How to write a one-page briefing memorandum for your AAAS STPF Executive Branch semi-finalist interview

Publication Date

Thursday, January 29, 2026

You’ve made it to the semi-finalist stage of the AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowship - congratulations!

Now you are probably wondering how to write a briefing memorandum for your semi-finalist interview assignment. As a scientist, it’s unlikely you received training on this concise style of writing. The goal of this blog post is to give you an overview of this one-page briefing memo and how to write this document for your semi-finalist interview.

What is the purpose of a briefing memo and who is the audience?

The objective of your one-page briefing memo is to share scientific expertise and recommendation(s) on issues of urgent awareness in a clear, accurate, and concise manner. A briefing memo provides key decision-makers with sound, practical information, which in turn assists them in making decisions that will best support the agency they lead and its national interests on a given issue. Time is a commodity for agency leadership, so brevity in your memo is critical for translating the most important points to a senior decision-maker or key stakeholder.

Your memo is written to inform or update an executive branch agency leader, senior decision-maker, or a stakeholder. A decision-maker might be an Assistant Director of an NSF Directorate who is responsible for directing research portfolios and managing staff. A stakeholder from an executive branch agency might be a representative from the agency’s Legislative Affairs office who is responsible for communicating information, policies, and results from that agency to Congress.

I’m a semi-finalist for the AAAS STPF program. How do I address everything asked of me in the Briefing Memorandum Assignment?

AAAS STPF will likely provide you with some context and a task for the briefing memo they would like you to submit as part of the semi-finalist interview process. They may provide instructions such as “your memo can address one or more of the following points”. When I was a semi-finalist, that included a list of 8 possible points regarding the use of AI, its risks, and the governance of emerging technologies. Don’t be overwhelmed by the list of possibilities. Follow the KISS principle - Keep It Simple, Stupid. My advice, and the advice I received from former fellows, is to pick just one or (at most) two of those points to address in your briefing memo. Remember, you only have one page to provide relevant background information, evidence, and a recommendation. Stick with addressing the problem surrounding one point thoroughly, concisely, and convincingly. Don’t get bogged down in all of the possible details.

How should I conduct my background research?

Don’t spend days or weeks digging yourself into a hole of minutiae. No one is going to expect you to provide a doctoral thesis amount of information in this one-pager. In fact, your time to conduct background research may be limited as briefing memos are frequently due on short notice in executive branch agencies, and for the semi-finalist interview stage the turn-around time is generally 10 days or less. So, think of the bigger picture. What does the target audience need to know, at a minimum, to understand what is happening and how they should act?

Use trusted sources to conduct background research. These include relevant government websites (e.g. DOE, DOJ, NIH, NSF, HHS, NASA, NIST, etc.), think tanks (e.g. Pew Research Center, Brookings Institution, CSIS, etc.), advocacy groups or non-profit organizations, the United Nations, or the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Make sure you are familiar with the priorities and goals of the agency you are writing to. You may want to look for recent memos from agencies or executive orders (EOs) from the White House and mention them in your background if they are relevant. If you plan to present different sides of an issue, reviewing op-eds from the media (e.g. Washington Post, NY Times, The Hill, Nature or Science blogs) may help.

What sections are included in a briefing memo?

Here are some examples of the sections typically found in a briefing memo for the AAAS Executive Branch Semi-Finalist Interview process:

Header containing:
1. “To:” line for stating the target audience or decision-maker
2. “From:” line to include your name and role or title
3. “Re:” line which states the title or subject of the briefing memo
Bottom Line or Summary: This should be a single sentence or a short paragraph that states your recommendation and rationale. The purpose is to provide clarity and a concise summary of the memo. Senior decision-makers will be more likely to understand the main message and recommendation of the memo if a clear, direct summary is presented from the start.
Background, Facts, or Introduction: Here is where you describe any relevant background information - historical or technical - about the issue at hand in the memo. What does the reader need to know to understand the current situation and your ask? Include statistics and facts from relevant sources.
Issue(s): Here is where you will describe the problem. What’s controversial? What will happen if this issue is not addressed by policy or if it is allowed to remain unchecked? Consider providing supporting or explanatory information that will support your “ask” in the recommendations section.
Recommendation(s): This is the section for your “ask” or what you need from the target audience of this briefing memo. Describe what changes need to be made to address the issue(s) and who should be involved with implementing these changes. Make specific recommendations and when possible, include deadlines, a timeline and/or associated costs. The recommendation(s) are often listed in a bulleted list or numbered list, or, if in paragraph format, each recommendation may be bolded.
Visuals: These can be used to help get a point across in a clear, compelling manner. The use of bold or italic text or boxes around important sections can help draw the reader’s attention to the main takeaway. A table, figure, or chart may be helpful, but opting for more text rather than visuals is likely a better use of your limited space for this semi-finalist interview assignment.

Do I include references or citations?

A formal list of references and in-text citations are typically not included. However, you can mention where relevant information was obtained directly in your text by blending it into a statement, such as, “A recent National Science Board Science and Engineering Indicators report showed the United States’ total R&D expenditures reached $940 billion in 2023, up 5% from 2022.”

Style suggestions:

Don’t go beyond one-page, single-sided.
Aim for a high school reading level in your briefing memo. Use Microsoft Word’s Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Readability Statistics tool to assess the grade level of your briefing memo.
Use the active voice, not passive. (E.g. “The U.S. is the leading producer and exporter of corn” vs “Corn was produced and exported in high quantities by the U.S.”)
We recommend putting the Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF) to help provide clarity and a concise summary.
Bold the headers to delineate the different sections of the memo.

Should I use Generative AI Tools to help me?

As noted above, part of the exercise of writing a memo is to share expertise and recommendations on urgent issues in a clear, accurate, and concise manner. This exercise is a great learning experience, and learning to craft a memo that is succinct and informative enough to be used in decision-making by leadership is an incredibly valuable skill. There are several reasons not to use generative AI tools to draft your memo:

It takes away the learning experience, and you should know how to write a memo before you can review one written by generative AI
It is not a sustainable or realistic method of writing memos once you are in the executive branch:
- Many agencies currently do not approve of inputting what could be sensitive information into public tools, though that could change
- AI is prone to false claims and hallucinations, especially in complicated policy grey areas
- You will not practice the ability to produce memos on short notice when the tools are unavailable, as is the current case at many executive branch agencies
You will have to defend the content of your memo when being interviewed - if you didn't write your memo, that gets challenging

Perhaps the biggest reason not to use generative AI tools in your memo is that they do not portray your authentic voice. Many tools have obvious 'tells' that are well-documented by the community, the media,^{[1, 2]} and in the literature,^{[3, 4]}and people who read dozens of applications and memos will be familiar with what these look like. However, one way you may be able to use these tools is to help gather source materials, edit your writing for brevity, or act as an adversarial reviewer: having a tool review your document for logical fallacies or inconsistencies can improve your arguments. Just use caution not to blindly copy and paste anything without verifying it.

Who can I turn to for help?

As with all writing, peer review and revision is highly recommended! The AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship program maintains an extensive directory of current and alumni fellows which you can search based on branch, agency, or office. Many fellows are willing to speak with prospective fellows or those in the semi-finalist stage of the interview process and provide them with feedback on a draft of a briefing memo or technical expertise related to the topic of a memo - all you have to do is ask! Use LinkedIn to connect with fellows and ask if they would be willing to review your briefing memo for feedback. Many former fellows will also share their memos as examples, from their semi-finalist interview process. It’s a good idea to compile a few different examples of briefing memos, as formats and approaches vary from person-to-person.

Additional Resources (Webinars, Videos, Examples):

References:

Rudnicka, Karolina (July 9, 2025). "Each AI chatbot has its own, distinctive writing style—just as humans do," Scientific American
Merrill, Jeremy B.; Chen, Szu Yu; Kumer, Emma (November 13, 2025). "What are the clues that ChatGPT wrote something? We analyzed its style," Washington Post
A. Reinhart,B. Markey,M. Laudenbach,K. Pantusen,R. Yurko,G. Weinberg, & D.W. Brown, Do LLMs write like humans? Variation in grammatical and rhetorical styles, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 122 (8) e2422455122, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2422455122 (2025).
Jenna Russell, Marzena Karpinska, and Mohit Iyyer. 2025. People who frequently use ChatGPT for writing tasks are accurate and robust detectors of AI-generated text. In Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers), pages 5342–5373, Vienna, Austria. Association for Computational Linguistics.

Author

Andrea Henle, Ph.D.
2024-2026 Executive Branch Fellow at the U.S. National Science Foundation

Editor

Swati Narasimhan, Ph.D.
Sci on the Fly, Editor
2025-2026 Legislative Branch Fellow at the U.S. National Science Foundation