English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

After looking over the instructor’s feedback on our white paper rough draft my group, group 3#, has decided to change our original proposal just a little in order to make it a more qualifying white paper. We have decided we will specifically do this by writing our white paper so that the primary reader is a contracting company that is reading our white paper in order to choose which form of alternative energy they will choose for a residential energy system. The instructor feed back was a big help on exactly how a white paper should read and now we are much more on track as a group. I have also learned more about the structure of a white paper from the reading in The Thompson Handbook, specifically that a white paper must be very audience specific, in that you should not try to inform a large, broad audience in one white paper. I learned from the TH reading that the white paper has to be very focused and specifically written for one particular audience in order for that audience to make an informed decision, educated decision. My group has decided that we will discuss four types of energy, the current energy use which is coal, and three forms of alternative energy: solar, wind, and geothermal. We will state the good and bad about all of the form of energy in order to remain unbiased and strictly factual. I am very interested in this topic and can relate it to some of my other coursework so this research project will come very easy and interesting to me. As stressed in the book it is important to have a connection to your research, which will help the research to be much better, and will help the research process to come easier. The book also mentioned that putting off research to the last minute is the worst thing to do for this type of project, which is why my group is being very proactive and having a lot of communication today in order to get a jump start on our final draft.