This week’s reading from the Thompson Handbook went into extensive detail about the process of finding and gathering research. This will certainly be the most important, and time consuming, portion of completing our white paper, so I think it’s definitely crucial that we pay particular attention to it. For our focus, we’ve decided to pursue a mainly online research approach that will involve using multiple search engines to locate the desired information. Google is an obvious choice, for starters, as it will likely provide the most relevant information, and we are also very familiar with it. A mutual online approach also seems the most appropriate, as this will be the primary means of communication for our group, not to mention that the entire technical writing course is, without doubt, online based.
One of our research focuses will definitely be on our audience, namely the primary audience. In conducting this research, our goal is to reveal major areas of concern or interest. This will be very helpful, as it will guide our writing style and approach. If our audience, for example, turns out to be rather concerned with costs and saving money, we may choose to emphasis the cost-cutting nature of one energy source over another. If this appears to be less of a concern, then maybe the emphasis will be placed somewhere else, such as on the environmental impact. Thoroughly researching and gaining an understanding of our audience will assure that our white paper is as helpful and relevant as possible.
Additional research will obviously be focused on the various methods of consuming energy (i.e. solar panels, geothermal, etc), including technicalities and statistics that will be motivational to the audience. Our focus will remain on fitting the purpose of a white paper, by assisting the audience in reaching a well-defined decision.
Researching the Audience
You make an interesting point about needing to research the interests/needs of an audience. I've never really thought of doing this before; usually we just sit down and brainstorm about who our audience is and what they might need, but it hadn't occurred to me to actually sit down and research for this information. I'm curious as to how you might find this out without just talking to a potential audience member. I think it will definitely be helpful information for your group to know, I just wonder how easy it might be for you guys to find.
Kristin
Working with the readings
Note: you need to be sure to incorporate the assigned readings into these reading reports. There is no other way to determine if you have done the assigned readings.
Audience
I agree with Kristin on the point about researching the needs of the audience. However, as I look back on previous research project I have done, I usually incorporated this into my research without knowing it. Obviously most research papers are slightly biased and one of the most important aspect of a persuasive paper is realizing your audience needs and opinions and framing the information in a light that will be positive to them.
One other thing you mentioned was incorporating the technicalities and statistics that will be motivational to the audience. Our group is trying to discuss the way we are going to present this information right now and the best way to do it. This might prove to be the most difficult part of the project.
Audience Research
I agree with Kristin that doing research on your audience is something I had never thought to do before. I would usually just think about it myself and decide who I thought the audience would be and what they would be looking for in the paper. However for this project, I can see the importance of researching ones audience. If we were making real white papers for instance I don't think a company would want to spend all that money and time to develop one, only to have it miss the mark with its intended audiences. However, I also have to agree with Kristin that while it would be very beneficial to your white paper to research your audience, it seems like that type of information is much more difficult to find.
Patrick Griffin
pgriffin@purdue.edu