Wednesday, 23 May 2012

What Really A White Paper Is


Typical document report (White Paper) hierarchy in industry:
  
Patents:
•    The most important document that you can write in many industries
•    One does not really write it alone.
•    A lawyer participates, but it is your document.
•    Patents are recognized here as documents with the highest priority and importance, because a patent can be the lifeblood of an organization.

Published Works:
•    Some companies encourage technical paper for publication in an archival journal
(some discourage journal publication, because it may open a channel to leak proprietary information)
•    The review of manuscripts for journal publication should include
•    The writer’s immediate supervisor
(or higher management at the discretion of the supervisor)
•    Corporate editors for writing correctness
•    The legal department
(to ensure freedom from libel and maintenance of intellectual property.)

Formal Technical Reports:
•    Is the gold standard of technical writing in industry.
•    If an engineer has been working on a major project for a year, managers surely will ask
•    what benefits the company received from the work.
•    What are the results?
•    What value are the results?
•    This report should be archived in the company library, and it should be complete enough so that the work can be repeated by others.


Informal Reports:
•    Laboratory reports are generally a good example of an informal report.
•    This document is probably more widely circulated & more significant than the trip report.
•    If the failure occurred on a key piece of equipment, report distribution should include the managers involved, and the document may be archived for a number of years.
   
Technical Memoranda:
•    In engineering and the basic sciences, most projects and studies are concluded either by a formal or informal report.
•    These documents generally pertain to business or ancillary aspects of a project or investigation.
•    A trip report is a good example of a technical memorandum.

Shared by Dr. Jahedi, Head of Medical Informatics

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