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"Ed" asks:
>>Does anyone have any insight into why there is so little
info on how to write white papers. they are a pretty common document type.
(A google search on 'white papers' returns 2.3 million hits ... why the silence? White papers are neither that hard to
define nor and they so easy as to be safely ignored.<<
Good question, Ed. I wondered that myself two years ago when I was charged by my superiors at my previous job to write several on the company's technology. Like yourself, I had heard of them and seen a few in my time, but knew of no hard and fast guidelines for the type. When I asked said superiors for such, assuming that they had written one or two before my arrival, they ummed and ahh-ed and told me to research it myself.
What I came up with, in brief, is as follows: the original white papers were a product of that enormously effective institution, the British Civil Service. Designed as broad declarations of intent, they outlined future policy in a given topic as a prelude to detailed legislation, including a detailed description of reasoning leading tothe stated conclusions.
In the past twenty years or, various technology companies felt the need for a type of document that was more informative and detailed than a glossy brochure, but more marketing-oriented and easier to read than a submission to a technical journal or academic paper. The commercial "white paper" (or "whitepaper") was born, capitalizing on the authority inherent in the old Imperial term.
The sheer variety of documents going by the term today and the lack of any authoritative set of guidelines on their writing is indicative - to my mind, at least - that the genre is still in its infancy. But as well as I can make out, the following features apply:
- Quasi-academic structure: A synopsis known as "Abstract", followed by clearly labelled sections (dare I say, "nested headings"?, ending with Conclusion, and References (never "Bibliography") in technical-publication format;
- More detail than a sales brochure;
- Aimed at a non-technical readership;
- Explains background and raison-d'etre as well as a description of the technology/product;
- Marketing-oriented while ostensibly objective: advantages of own product enumerated as a matter of fact, with or without direct comparison to competition, superlatives or blatant value judgments avoided;
- Professionally-designed layouts, illustrations, pulled-quotes, and other graphic design devices are allowed and even encouraged to enhance readability.
In my experience, a good example of the genre are the feature articles in popular science magazines such as Scientific American (which is a reflection of the authority and effectiveness of that writing, not, heaven forfend, an implication that the editors of Sci-Am are guilty of accepting "advertorials").
Walking the fine line between out-and-out marketing and dry technical stodge, whitepapers are a subtle area of technical writing, and very enjoyable if you genuinely believe in the product or technology in question. If you don't and you're not a natural salesman, it can feel like anything between a nightmare of puffery and a prostitution of one's craft.
Good luck.
- Jonathan Stoppi
stops -at- qualum -dot- com
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