I have never heard of a white paper before this assignment. I found there a few major components to consider when writing a white paper: audience, context, and credibility. First the audience is important because your vocabulary should form around the directed audience. For example, if a technical white paper is meant for company executives, then the details and vocabulary should be more elementary so the executive knows what is going on. Likewise, if a technical audience is desired for the same white paper, more technical terms can be used. The context of the white paper should be straightforward and to the point. Many people are busy nowadays, and if the first paragraph doesn't get the the point and real them in, they most probably will not read it. As for credibility, white papers should not make the audience question the credibility of the white paper. They should be unbiased, but still make valid points to support its topic.
White papers are used in many different ways. Government white papers, for example, are used to give information of a certain topic, giving the pros and cons as well as beneficiaries of the topic. Marketing white papers, however, are used to persuade an audience to consider a product for their benefit. Even though they are persuading an audience, it still needs to stay unbiased, perhaps by showing why a certain product or service can better the audience while not putting down another product or service. Although government and marketing white papers are different, sometimes they could be the same. For instance, a government white paper may be marketing a new service they have available and need its people to go along with the idea. Another example would be to persuade its people to volunteer for the armed forces during extensive war efforts.
Poor White Papers
Again, I think it’s funny that so many posts this week open with an introduction such as yours, that we were very unaware of what a white paper is. But, as I have said to others, it’s not so much that we don’t know what they are, as it is we had simply not heard of the term before. Some students have mentioned they were also unaware of what a white paper is, prior to this class, but went on to outline some nearly identical documents they had created in the past. For this reason, as I’ve stated in my post for this week, I don’t believe the term ‘white paper’ is very fair to the documents. I mean, I have to assume that many beneficial white papers are going unwritten simply because the to-be authors are unfamiliar with the concept. After all, look at the percentage of our class that had not come in contact with a white paper prior to this course.
Good Point
This is true. After you say this, I recall seeing documents that resemble white papers, but I have never actually heard the term 'white paper'. I think the term 'white paper' is bad for these documents. This term has not been used much; therefore, this is why many people have not written or heard of these documents, like you said. It would be more beneficial if they were dubbed something a bit more descriptive such as 'decision-making papers' or 'decision-assisting papers', although these don't have a very good ring to them.
First White Paper
It's interested that you have never heard of white papers. I can see that. I did not know about white papers until high school. I was part of a FIRST Robotics team and the robotics community had a website with forums, a calendar, and interestingly white papers. White papers were actually a crucual part of the community because one robotics team could communicate to another team on how to do certain things such as design a robot in AutoCAD, how to get sensor data from potentiometers, or how to write PHP.
First White Paper as well
Like apersohn, I had never heard of a white paper. I think this is because I have already written paper familiar to what is described as a “White Paper”. I think the largest trouble I am going to have while writing this paper is not being bias. I find myself wanting to promote a topic rather than giving all information with the pros and cons. I also liked the comparison that you had with the government and the marketing. It illustrated what two different organizations that are so different do some of the same things with communicating to their employees.
Zebulon Rouse