Week 3 – Discussion two | CourseHero Helper

Remember to change subject lines of postings and responses accordingly. The posting must include your first name and the name of your proposed external paper topic. Once I have approved your topic, you may NOT CHANGE the topic for your white paper WA5. I will type APPROVED in the subject line of my response. If the topic is NOT approved then I will request clarification or changes that you will provide in a response to my question
Discussion participation due dates (Please do not post before the first day of the week)
By Thursday, make your initial discussion board posting
By Saturday, make one response to a classmate’s posting. NOTE: make a response to a posting that does not yet have a response. DO NOT make a second response to a posting that already has one response.
By Sunday, answer professor’s questions re: your posting
By Monday, return to your discussion and reply to classmates who responded to your posting
The last writing assignment in our class will be a white paper for an external audience. This discussion thread is designed to help you get started in thinking about this assignment.
In Content for Week 3, you can access a video from the Purdue OWL, “White Papers: An Introduction to the Genre and Its Expectations.”
The following video provides an in-depth review of the genre of the white paper. The guidelines in the video are incorporated into the instructions for writing assignment #4, the white paper assignment. You will want to watch this video a few times and become familiar with the advice in it.
Purdue OWL–White Papers: An Introduction to the Genre and Its Expectations
After watching the video, please respond to the following two tasks.
Describe a possible white paper for an external audience. This will be a paper that YOU WILL WRITE TO A SPECIFIC COMPANY OR ORGANIZATION. This may NOT be related to government, current events (politics), military, law enforcement, etc. The topic MUST BE A SPECIFIC PROBLEM, with a SPECIFIC RECOMMENDED SOLUTION that you can offer to a company or organization. DO NOT USE ANY OF THE TOPICS FROM SAMPLE PAPERS.Keep in mind that, for a white paper to an external audience, you will not be writing to an audience for an organization of which you are a member. In other words, you would not write a white paper to your boss about the need to correct a problem in your company. That would be an internal white paper because you are a part of the company. You would not write a white paper to the board of directors of your son’s soccer league about the need to address a problem in the soccer fields. That would be an internal white paper because you are a part of the soccer league.However, you could write a white paper to other companies about a product or service that your company sells or offers. For example, let us consider an example of a person named Susan. She works for a company that has developed a new method of training IT personnel. She could write a white paper for companies that have IT departments. The white paper might compare current methods of training IT personnel to the new method that her company has created.This would be an example of an external audience, as Susan is not familiar with the individuals who will read her white paper, does not work for these companies, and is not involved in these companies. Or we can consider an example of a person named Joseph. He works for a company that had a bad experience in moving its data to the cloud. He could write a white paper for companies that are considering moving their data to the cloud. The white paper would discuss current pitfalls of moving to the cloud that Joe feels companies should be aware of and provide a recommendation for avoiding these problems. This would be an example of an external audience, as Joseph is not familiar with the individuals who will read his white paper, does not work for the companies that might benefit from it, and is not involved in these companies in any way.
2. Describe what terms you might need to define or what concepts you might need to explain for a white paper of the type you mentioned in task #1 above. For example, a white paper that gives cautions about moving to the cloud will have to define certain cloud terminology for its audience. A white paper that describes a new method of training IT personnel will have to define certain terms used in IT now. Make a numbered list of no fewer than FIVE terms related to your topic and provide in your own words a 1-2 sentence definition for each. DO NOT COPY DEFINITIONS FROM ANY SOURCE. If you don’t know enough to use your own words for defining terms, then perhaps you might consider a different topic.
Please note that, whatever ideas you come up with in responding to this discussion thread (and we can discuss more than one if you like throughout the thread this week) once the topic is approved, you may not change topics.
The purpose of this thread is to help you get started on your final paper WA5 that counts THIRTY PERCENT of your final course grade. In future discussions, we will add to this with research articles and executive summary, previous solutions to problems, recommended solution, etc. to make the final writing of the paper go smoothly (as you will have already done most of the work(.