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White Papers

• About white papers.• The importance of document design.• Structured authoring.• Writing your white paper.

© 2015 Karen Thompson Department of English University of Idaho

English 313: Business Writing

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Social or Political Focus

• The term white paper was originally used to describe a report that states the social or political position of an organization.

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IT Marketing Focus• Sometimes a white paper is a marketing

document aimed at selling a certain technology or products.

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Technical or ResearchWhite Papers

• At other times, a white paper presents the results scientific research or findings from a usability test of a product(s).

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White Papers Can Be

• Written for internal audiences – coworkers, project managers, high-level decision makers.

OR• Written for external audiences – clients or

customers.

• In both cases, document design is important.

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The Importance of Document Design

• Document design supports (or can work against) the brand personality of a business or organization.

• Enforcing a consistent document design has traditionally been done by giving employees style guides and having editors make certain that the style is consistently maintained.

• In today’s workplace, hower, the volume and complexity of documents means that traditional methods are often very inefficient.

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Here’s an Example• This is a list of the literature

that Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) produces. Under each menu item are often up to a hundred or more documents.

• Because many different employees will write this literature, SEL needs to have a means of ensuring that those documents will be consistent in design, reflecting their brand, and also a way of doing this efficiently.

• Structured authoring provides the means of doing both.

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Structured Authoring Technology

• When writers use structured authoring technology, they complete a series of steps within a writing environment controlled by software that enforces style rules and organizing patterns for sets of documents.

• Writers must complete these steps by using the software before the document can be published.

• What this means is that content can be easily separated and stored in a database, and then used again when creating documents that need similar language for sections or used in a way that allows writers to easily repurpose prior writing.

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Adobe FrameMaker is a Popular Software for Structured Authoring

Most white papers are produced using structured authoring. Let’s look at an example.

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Notice how tableau’s website and white papers have a common look and feel.

There is some variation in the pages of these white papers, but the design and structure is consistent.

These are examples of data sheets by SEL. These sheets describe the features and benefits of the products.

Notice they have a consistent look and feel that supports the brand.

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In this project,• You will not be using structured authoring technology, but you will be able to practice structured authoring conceptually.

• I’ll provide a rule for the structure of your white paper that you should follow.

• The design, however, will be your choice. You might consider modeling your paper to look like one of the professional white paper examples posted in bblearn.

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The Structure Rule is Based on IMRaD

IMRaD stands for:– Introduction– Methods– Results

and– Discussion

This is a common structure for presenting the results of research, and it evolved out of the need to separate:

• Methods: how the research was done.• Results: what the research found.• Discussion: what the findings mean.

Using this structure allows readers to decide the validity of methods, findings, and interpretation. For example, the methods may be valid but the interpretation is questionable etc.

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Structure Rule: Use Either IMRaD or Modified IMRaD Structure

• Title Page• Executive Summary• Table of Contents• Introduction • Methods• Results/Discussion• Conclusion and/or

Recommendations• Bibliography

These major headings need to be in your paper.You may modify the IMRaD structure to put results and discussion together or separate them if that works best for your content.

You will also need a clear conclusion and/or recommendations and a works cited or bibliography page.

As you work on the document design, remember to apply those principles you learned about graphic design.

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Title Page: Poor Design Choices

Color choices and design elements convey meaning.

Clearly, these are not the best rhetorical design choices.

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Title Page: Improved Design Choices

These rhetorical design choices match the purpose of the white paper.

When designing your title page, be certain the design supports your purpose.

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Word: Title Page Tip

• If you change the background color of the title page (or any page) in Word, that background color will be in all pages.

• To avoid that problem, use a text box, and stretch it the width and length of your cover page.

• NOTE: there are other solutions to that problem.

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Writing the Sections of Your White Paper

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Focus on Audience and Purpose• Keep the hypothetical writing situation in minid

to help you focus on audience and purpose as you write:– You work for a company that specializes in crisis

communicaton management.

– The purpose of your white paper is to present the findings from your research about a specific crisis communication event to key readers.

– These readers will visit your company’s website to download and read white papers about crisis communication.

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Writing the Executive Summary

• Executive Summaries (ES) evolved out of the need to provide high-level decision makers with a summary of a larger document.

• An ES is read by the decision maker as preparation for meetings and/or other presentations that will be given to help him/her make decisions.

• An ES today can be aimed at reaching key readers outside the organization. Your white paper will be aimed at reaching readers interested in research about crisis communication.

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Writing Your Executive Summary

• It’s best to write the ES last.

• Use these tips to write an effective ES:– Take time to write it. – Avoid pulling out excerpts and tacking these together. – An ES that is written for a research-based white paper

will need to present what you did, why, how, and key findings.

– see additional tips in your textbook.

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Table of Contents

• The purpose of a TOC is to help readers find information quickly by going to the page it’s on.

• It’s a good idea to learn how to create an automatic table of contents, but you may use a manual method.

• To create a table of contents manually, you need to create a tab and use the dot leaders function.

• A TOC should be balanced on the page. Look at a few to get an idea of how it should look.

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Writing the Introduction

• You can make one of several rhetorical moves for the introduction.

• You could start with a short summary of the crisis event and then lead your reader to the purpose of your white paper or you could do this in reverse.

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Example 1: Starting with purpose statement.

This white paper presents research findings from an analysis of the crisis event and communication surrounding it that significantly damaged Paula Deen’s brand in 2013.

BackgroundOn May 17, 2013, Paula Deen and her brother were sued by their former restaurant manager, Lisa Jackson, for 1.2 million. Jackson claimed that the Deen’s tolerated a racist workplace environment and made racist comments themselves.

Although a judge ruled in favor of the Deen’s, what Paula Deen said during a deposition triggers a crisis event that significantly damaged her brand in just a little over a week.

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Example 2: Starting with the background.BackgroundOn May 17, 2013, Paula Deen and her brother were sued by their former restaurant manager, Lisa Jackson, for 1.2 million. Jackson claimed that the Deen’s tolerated a racist workplace environment and made racist comments themselves.

Although a judge ruled in favor of the Deen’s, what Paula Deen said during a deposition triggers a crisis event that significantly damaged her brand in just a little over a week.

PurposeThis white paper presents the findings from analyzing this crisis event and the communication surrounding it.

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The introduction should also include:

• The specific objectives of your research. This means what you analyzed.

• Think of putting the objectives into a bulleted or numbered list.

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Example of Objectives

ObjectivesSpecifically, the research objectives included investigating the following:• how prior scandals involving Deen influenced

public perceptions about this crisis,• how the media reported and influenced

perceptions about the crisis,• how Deen and her employer, Food Network,

responded to the crisis.

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Methods

After the introduction, you will need to describe your research methodology.

Include the types crisis communication data you gathered, the organizing principle you applied using one or more of the scholarly articles, and the method used to code data.

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Example

MethodsCommunication data was gathered from popular digital sources and included excerpts from articles about the crisis found in online news sources as well as samples of public comments from readers.

The data was organized according to three phases of crisis communication as described by Tulika Varma in [article title] and David Wahlberg in [article title]

Phase 1: DenialPhase 2: Minimize EffectsPhase 3: Resolution

Data was coded inductively using Grounded Theory methodology.

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Results/Discussion

• How you write the results will depend on the organizing strategy you chose based on one or more of the scholarly articles.

• In this case, the writer would organize and present the findings using the three phases identified in the methodology section.

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So, first-level headings under results might be:

• Phase 1: Denial

• Phase 2: Minimize Effects

• Phase 3: Resolution

A more complete definition of each phase would be useful to readers. Next, the writer would want to logically order the findings under each corresponding phase, use subheadings, and interpret the significance of the findings for readers. Including some supporting graphics would be useful as well.

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Another possible choice for this writer is to add dates to the phases.

May 13 to June 20, 2013Phase 1: Denial

June 21 to June 25, 2013Phase 2: Minimize Effects

June 26, 2013 to February 28, 2014 Phase 2: Resolution

Notice how this choice would help the writer make the point that the crisis occurs over a few days but is not resolved for months. is

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Graphic

• You will need to include at least one graphic that represents a finding(s) from coding the data.

• See the lecture: Graphically Representing Data for more information about types of graphics and how to choose one appropriate to your findings.

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Conclusions and/or Recommendations

• How you conclude your white paper will depend on where the findings lead you.

• You may decide to write a conclusion that includes recommendations or just end with a conclusion.

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Works Cited or Bibliography

• It’s important that you cite sources in your white paper.

• Use any standard documentation style and refer to the lecture on Citing Sources for help.

• The last page will be a Works Cited or Bibliography depending on the documentation style you use.