Whitepaper Project Evaluation

I will ask myself the following questions as I evaluate the rhetorical appropriateness of your whitepaper.

Your Ethos

• Does your whitepaper develop and present a compelling ethos to your audience—that is, do you come across sounding like the smart, capable people that you are?
• Do you use research to effectively "borrow" the ethos of knowledgeable sources? Do you cite these sources appropriately?
• Do you effectively build your ethos as an "objective" or "neutral" researcher/reporter in your whitepaper? For instance, do you address both the positive and negative aspects of your technology?
• Does your report live up to your audience's expectations of a whitepaper document?

Your Audience and Purpose

• Is your whitepaper complete and appropriate in scope for the scenario you have chosen?
• Do you strike the right balance between summary and details? That is, will your audience walk away with a sufficient working knowledge of the technology to make informed decisions, but not spend all day reading?
• Does your whitepaper address your audience's needs, without being too specific to their particular situation? Would your whitepaper be equally appropriate to a similar business scenario?
  

Organization, Usability, Design, and Style

• Is your whitepaper structured appropriately for its intended audience? Does your whitepaper have consciously designed document features that reflect your consideration of the audience and their needs?
• Is your writing style—your tone, manner of address, vocabulary, grammar, tense, etc.—appropriate to the whitepaper genre?
• Is your use of visuals, illustrations, headings, sections, and other document features in direct service to your rhetorical purpose, or do these things act more as a distraction?