English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

Overall, you have a start here. You are analyzing the different smartphones by the same categories, which is good, because it enables effective comparison.

The main thing you should do is get a sharp understanding of the primary audience for this document and shape it for that group. Is this for individual consumers? (Keep in mind that individual consumers rarely read white papers, but they might for a specialized subject like this.) Is it for corporate buyers? Regardless, your introduction should make clear who this document serves, and the document should present the information in a way that is useful for that audience. Think of it this way: you have the information, how would it be presented to be meaningful for an individual consumer? How would it be meaningfully presented for a corporate buyer? What would he or she want to know about the subject? What would you highlight, and how would you say it? Then think how things would change if this were for an individual consumer.

Also, your introduction should frame a problem that your options solve. White papers are decision-enabling documents. Additionally, it isn't always the case that a person must switch carriers to use a smartphone, so the issue probably shouldn't be presented as such. I encourage you to look at the provided examples of white papers and your classmates' drafts to see different ideas for introductions.

Another major issue is that your document doesn't document its sources, which is required, as the project description states. One of the more unobtrusive ways to document sources is through footnotes. You can use the information in your research blogs to produce your citations (this is a main reason why we ask you to do them).

Also be aware that white papers contains a conclusion, as our readings indicate. White papers are generally standardized documents containing a title page, executive summary, introduction, body (broken into chunks), and conclusion.

Finally, make sure to be precise with facts and grammar. Some of the factual statements in the document are a little fuzzy, such as in the iPhone analysis, which states that its OS is "vaguely" based on OS X (it is a direct offshoot of it). There are also some grammatical slips, such as: "Most of the public really enjoys the easy navigable screens being intuitive; [...]." This statement should be something such as: "Most of the public really enjoys the intuitive, easy-to-navigate screens," or "Most of the public really enjoys the easy navigable screens, because they are intuitive." (Also, a statement like this needs citation. How do we know the public likes this?)

Overall, you have a start here, but make sure to address these issues going forward.