After the reading and some recent comments about our proposal there has been a lot I’m taking from this week’s lessons. First and foremost, our group discovered we really need to revamp our proposal. We discovered that we don’t have much of a specific audience and need to really address this big issue. So this is currently where the project is at. I’ve found that in order to research this topic we’re going to really need to slim down our audience focus. This week’s reading from the Thompson Handbook covered the importance of research and gave several strategies for successful research. There are some strategies from the reading I think will definitely be implemented in our groups work.
Of the different strategies to research I think summarizing research will benefit us the most. Summarizing will allow us to really focus on our main points and also identify what sort of audience we’re really trying to focus on. Most of our research will be focused around cost analysis vs. functionality. Summarizing the main pros/cons of each will help to outline the document also. The main focus of the paper is on what software solutions are viable and at what costs. Researching these pros/cons of each dimension of our focus will create an objective document that will ultimately distinguish competing solutions for a specific problem, so that the reader can make an intelligent decision regarding the problem.
As far as a plan of attack for our research, we’ve given some thought. I’ve used Gantt Charts before for project management and found it allows easy communication of who’s working on what and when. I think this will greatly benefit us as we independently will be researching different aspects of this project. Once we have all organized our research we will be collaborating and going from there.
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.
Researching the Audience
You mention that your team is currently working on determining the specific audience that your white paper will target. After you guys decide which audience you wish to target, don’t forget to research the audience. I feel that researching the audience is just as important as researching your actual topic. By researching your audience, you will be able to understand what information will be most valued by your audience. Doing audience research early on will allow you and your team to finish the research over your actual topic in a quicker and easier fashion. While researching your topic you will be able to quickly determine what information will be most relevant to your audience.
Using your audience as a source of information
I'd like to add that audience research itsn't necessarily limited to just figuring out what your audience wants to know or how you should frame your information.
For example, pretend you are writing a white paper for executives in a mid-sized construction company, comparing different brands and models of trucks for the company to buy for its fleet. In addition to looking at ratings a product data for the different trucks themselves, you could also look at similar companies' truck decisions, paying particular attention to satisfaction and other results (pertaining to things like safety and maintenence). That kind of research would give you information on how the different trucks hold up under professional construction conditions similar to those of the company.
That kind of information may not always be readily available, but with new technologies (especially green ones), there is plenty of information out there. If you were to find enough of this type of information, it could even be a focal point of your conclusions.
Limited Audience
I know with research it is really hard to keep focused on a particular set of audience. Wanting a large audience is nice to have, but all of the information can not be covered the same with a beginner level audience and an educated audience. For you wanting to cover all of your audiences you would have to write multiple papers intended for each of different groups. This would be similar to the instructions project. For instance each paper you would be using different terminology and strategies that accompanies each group. Having a multiple papers means more work, and for this project you are writing just one paper, so choosing one audience is appropriate to search for.
Zebulon Rouse
audience
My group and I are in the same boat when it comes to slimming down the audience. We chose an audience that was pretty broad and would be hard to pin point. My group and I thought that we could target a particular group, college students, but when it came down to it, it was much too broad and not focused properly. You also make a good point about summarizing data when talking about cost analysis. Usually cost analysis is pretty boring to read and the only information you will need is the max, min, and averages so summarizing should be very appropriate.
My group as well had to
My group as well had to revamp our proposal because we too initially did not fully understand that a white paper needed to be written for a very specific audience, not just the general public. Once we figured this out from reading the instructor blog we had a much better idea of exactly what a white paper is supposed to do and who it is for. You definitely are on the right track when you talk about researching the pros and cons because that is exactly what a white paper should do, it should give both the positives and negatives in order to remain completely unbiased.