OK, I follow the idea of “White Papers” are created to inform and offer unique value to an organization, which is a term I had not crossed until this assignment. However, the idea they provide , as Elissa Miller states in the steak behind the sizzle, “…unbiased information and analysis” is a perplexing issue to me. Why would a firm or organization take the time to compose a “White Paper” on a problem or to describe an environment, which all “White Papers” do whether government or marketing, if they were not trying to create a need and have an idea of how to solve this problem or how to successfully navigate around an obstacle of a particular environment? Seems illogical to me. From my limited exposure to this concept, it appears white papers inherently will lean to the side of the drafters.
I think this part of the project is going to be difficult to avoid while preparing our “White Paper” documents. I guess we are just going have to be a sly salesman and provided information that has been masterfully structured to just highlight the information that is favorable to our product. The informed decision the customer will make will only be with information that is favorable to the company. This is not all that necessarily bad. In the marketing arena this helps the company formalize a concept of need and how they can help fill this void. Whether by solving an issue or identifying a hole, they provide a service of informing an organization they stand ready to fix the problem for them.
I don't think the government “White Paper” documents are structured necessarily on just provided information to educated it's audience. Both documents are indented to present crafted information for the audience to allow them to be decision makers.
Bias & White Papers
I think a lot of us are struggling with the idea that our white papers are supposed to remain neutral while "trying to create a need and have an idea of how to solve this problem or how to successfully navigate around an obstacle." I can entirely understand a government white paper written by an outside source that would present both sides to an issue and NOT try to give a solution. That was what I originally thought a true white paper was. But I think it's often difficult to do, not just because of the drafter, but because if these papers are truly setting a good foundation for decision-making, the decision would be apparent.
Kristin
Decision-making.
Surely we can imagine all sorts of decisions where there a multiple options, each of them good. Indeed, many decisions are between competing goods rather than between a good and a bad. Where to work? Where to go to school? There is certainly more than one good school and one good place to work. To return to our own experiences on the job market, Jeremy and I had to make decisions where the obvious choice was not apparent. For instance, the school is great, but it means living in the big city. The location is great, but the teaching load is heavy. Both are good choices, but they are good for different reasons.
This shows up in technological solutions as well. This software will do everything, but it is very expensive. This program is affordable, but it is less efficient. This is why offering a full perspective on each solution will allow the reader to make an informed decision. What is an apparent choice to you may not be so for the reader, who most likely has a different set of values, needs, expectations. Assuming you know what the best decision is puts your perspective above that of the reader, and this is the worst kind of bias in technical writing.
The reader's choice
Your reply helped me organize the correct way of approaching differing styles of white papers. I hadn't considered that many times there multiple good solutions, and the white paper's purpose is simply to inform the decision maker about the pro's and con's of each. Then it's up to the decision maker to take that information and apply to his situation, and not necessarily the circumstances of the drafters. This is why the white paper format works well both for companies and government. Companies simply provide their product details and a solution to a problem it provides for, and can still remain unbiased, but will still sell their products. Government leaders can use white papers made by researchers to make informed political decisions, often between competing good ideas.
Bias
You make a strong point that was definitely in the back of my mind while I was reading for this week about how an unbiased white paper almost seems like an oxymoron. It would be silly for a company that was trying to sell a product to not be biased when writing the paper. The only time I could see a white paper being unbiased is if someone removed from the company was writing it as a sort of product review.
I also agree with your opinion about this project being difficult in staying unbiased and we probably won't be able to do so. The way I am going to approach it is as I've said above: we should present our white paper topics as someone removed from the product itself and as a product review.
Bad wording?
I personally feel that the discussion of bias is a little bit misleading. There are white papers out there, like product reviews, that probably are written with objectivity, but that doesn't need to be a requirement. In fact, even with product reviews, after a reviewer goes through the process of testing a product, you could make the argument that he or she will be biased toward the findings.
I think the point is not that we have to have an opinion or make an argument, but to deliver the information in a way that leaves judgement up to the reader. That means avoiding language and techniques that "sell" your arguments, and instead giving the reader the information that forms the basis of your argument and relying on the strength of the information itself to influence the audience.
Overthinking
After perusing around the blog posts for this week, it seems that the issue on bias/non-bias white papers is somewhat of a big deal with everyone. I really don't think it's too complicated; it's not much different from writing a book report or a scientific journal article. All you have to do it go out, get the data, process the data, and write it down. In many ways this is easier than playing the salesman, because you don't have to choose the correct things to say and how to say them-just state everything. I could imagine the reason why a marketing team would want to write such a paper for prospective clients would be because a bias paper would not be at all valuable to those clients. If their product doesn't preform as well as they were led to believe (from a bias paper, for example) the client probably won't be pleased and won't do business with them in the future-something along these lines anyway.