Mini-cases and boxes

1. Mini-cases and boxes Examples to illustrate your point

2. What is a mini-case? • Short example to illustrate your point • 1-3 paras, in a box • Self-contained • Can be understood by itself • Drawn from real world

3. Make it interesting • Give it a catchy title • Use boldface and bullets if needed • Include an illustration or photo • If useful and if space • Cite the source if needed

4. Make it interesting • Tell a story about real people, project or event • Use human interest • Eg, story of farmer – give her name and village • Show links to policy • How policy affects or benefits people • How it supports the need for policy change • Show why it is important • Think like a news editor – “So what?”

5. Other boxes • Information that stands by itself • Difficult to fit into text without disrupting flow • Good for lists

6. More on boxes • Important design element • Break up the sea of text on page • Refer to them in the text • “See Box 1” • But don’t have too many boxes • Average of 1 per page is enough • If too many boxes • Ask if all are needed • Try to integrate into text

7. Still more on boxes • Don’t use Word Text Boxes • They get deleted easily • Some desktop publishing programs ignore them • Put contents of each box in a single-cell Word table • Or mark with “BEGIN BOX” and “END BOX”