English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

For this week's tasks related to the final group project, I focused my attention on creating a document thumbnail and completing research. In creating the document thumbnail, my goal was to outline a structure for our white paper that I felt would be appropriate. I used many of the example white papers provided by the instructor as a guiding source. In viewing these examples, I noticed several consistencies which I carried over into my design. First, I made sure to take proper advantage of white space. To make this simple, I chose to use a two-column approach, with text on both the left and right side of the page. On top of this, I made several farther efforts to improve the appearance to the viewer. This included formatting headers and subheaders in such a manner that they were easily locatable, but not distracting or outlandish, as well as including graphics and balancing color throughout. I think in completing these tasks that I created a solid thumbnail from which to base our white paper.

In gathering research, I wanted to really focus in on my area of interest, that being horizontal closed-loop geothermal systems. In line with the white paper's purpose, I hoped to find a variety of advantages and disadvantages inherent to this system that could motivate the primary audience's (contractor's) decision. Factors that came into play here included geology, cost, as well as available land needs. I also was able to gather data on efficiency and performance, in comparison with other geothermal systems as well as traditional heating and cooling means. I think that this research, thus far, has set me out in the correct direction, and I will continue to collect more information that I feel relevent to my area of concern.