In preparing for this assignment, you will want to review the following videos:
"White Papers: An Introduction to the Genre and Its Expectations," from the Purdue OWL
"What is a White Paper?" by Mak Pandit
You may take any of the following approaches:
a white paper to an internal audience - written to individuals within an organization you work for or are a part of. The white paper might inform them about a trend in the field and/or to solve a problem in the organization.
a white paper to an external audience - written to individuals in a particular industry or field of study, but not an organization you are a part of. The white paper could address a problem you are attempting to solve in the organization or to inform an external audience about a relevant trend.
a white paper promoting a new product or service to potential customers. This is an example of a white paper to an external audience, but it features different rhetorical considerations than the typical white paper written to an external audience does.
All three options are discussed in the Purdue OWL video mentioned above. In addition, the video from Mak Pandit mentioned above provides excellent insight into how these approaches would work.
For example, if your white paper is being written to advertise a new taxi service in your area, you might review what transportation services are provided now and show why the new taxi service fills a need that the current set of transportation services does not fill or solves a problem that the current set of transportation services does not solve. You will provide data and evidence for why the new taxi service has promise in solving the problems you have identified.
In this section of the white paper, your use of sources will be very important as well. You should integrate research to show that the problems you have identified will be solved by your new approach.
In the Conclusion section, you review what your research shows in light of the previous approaches used. You will not tell the audience what steps to take next. However, you will summarize what your findings articulate.
In the References, you will list your sources that you cited in the paper. You will list them in APA format. Please note that the lectures on white papers that you have viewed and examples of white papers you may have read may not have used APA format. You will be using APA format in this assignment.
You are required to have at least five sources for your paper. In addition, at least one of them is to have been acquired through UMUC Library OneSearch.
Primary sources will be very beneficial for the paper. For example, if your white paper is being written to advertise a new taxi service in your area, you might interview some local residents about the problems they have with the current transportation services in the area. The information in such interviews would be persuasive research to integrate into your white paper.
The following websites and documents offer additional guidance in writing a white paper:
Chapter 1, "A Primer on White Papers," by Michael Stelzner
"The Art of the White Paper," by Manuel Gordon and Gordon Graham