Overall, the format of your white paper looks great! I really like the appearance because it is very clean and appealing to the eye. It is simple, yet very professional. The introduction gives a nice preview of what is to come and the headings and sections are organized well. I believe your argument would be that email is constantly changing and that your white paper gives a few options of the best technologies out there today.
Since you will have to cut down significantly on the text, almost 2,000 words, there are parts that would be easier to take out. The history in PDA technology is nice, but not necessary. I think you would be able to take out the entire second paragraph (To fully understand…Motorola Q) under that section. The first paragraph explains the history well enough.
The only issue that I have is with your title being “The Changing Nature of Email”. To me it seems like the topic of ShopText does not exactly fit under this title. I really loved the section on ShopText, but I think if you want to keep it you should maybe consider revising your title. I do not really have any good ideas because the rest of the white paper is about email, but to me the shopping online doesn’t fall under email, it falls under internet, or something less specific. But if you cannot change your title, I understand that it would be hard, I think you could get by with keeping ShopText in there. It just really caught me off guard and seemed like a random section. I would also cut out several of the paragraphs that are very specific, like the paragraph about how it has changed the music scene. It is very interesting, but since your group will basically have to eliminate half of your information, some of that stuff should go first.
For the MiPad section of the paper, I got a little lost in the first paragraph because there were so many different things cited. This broke it up in several places and I would try to fix that by using footnotes instead or by getting rid of some of those specific facts. If you do not want to get rid of them all together, you can move them to other paragraphs. Also, if you need to take parts out of this section to make your final draft shorter, I would keep all of the information specific to email, but some of the specific information about its development from the first few paragraphs can go. I really like the fourth paragraph though. That connects well with the title.
The Mozilla Thunderbird section is very nice. It has a lot of good information about email and the benefits of new programs today. It fits well with the title and what I have considered to be your argument (best new email technologies).
Have you considered a short conclusion to wrap everything up? You might want to think about the possibility, but once again with the limited word count, one might not be necessary. I’m not an expert with white papers, so I do not know how much of a difference it makes by including/ not including one.
I scanned through your bibliography page and it looked good. I did not check to see if every source was cited correctly, but you all did such a nice job on the paper, I am sure you put forth the same effort in citing your sources.
*Note - Typo in the first paragraph under Thunderbird 2.0: misspelled worth as wroth…just wanted to point it out!
Well done! I enjoyed reading your white paper and good luck revising it for your final draft!
Submitted by Kendraly16 on Mon, 03/24/2008 - 22:13.
• Analyze the structure of the paper. Could any section(s) or paragraph(s) be reorganized?
Considering the outline of the various sections given by the headings, is the overall structure the best way to organize the paper?
I don’t know if your paper looked the way it does when I pull it up but the sections are half way between pages and such. It just needs to be altered a little. Your introduction is nice and gives a nice preview of what you are going to talk about.
• Check to see if the white paper has an argument within it about the topic under investigation, and comment on whether this argument is clear enough to you as a reader.
I can only guess what your argument is, however I feel like it could be a little more clearly stated.
• Point out which sections in the paper you feel are most important and least important. Since the paper will be heavily reduced in length, describe sections/paragraphs that might be summarized or eliminated all together.
I think the “PDA Technology” could be shortened quite a bit. It is a nice introduction into your body, however it doesn’t need to be that long. Write a couple sentences about each, not paragraphs.
• Note wherever the writing is unclear to you or where you feel something needs to be explained more. Were there any concepts or terms that you did not understand? Are there any particular areas in the paper which deserve to be expanded because you feel they are important topics?
This ties into the argument…why do you explain the different PDA’s and then talk about the different email applications? That is a little unclear to me.
• Note in the paper anywhere where you feel the authors are stating their own opinions rather than reporting on what their research says.
You did a really good job stating facts instead of opinions.
• Note any problems you might observe with how the paper fits the white paper genre.
I think you fit the white paper genre very well.
• Important: Since documentation of sources is a critically important aspect of professional research, if you notice any citation problems in MLA format, point them out to the authors.
I just looked through the bibliography briefly, but it looks good to me.
*One thing that I wanted to let you know is in the “A Word Before..” paragraph, you have “One of the most advanced forms of email technology is through text messaging, and is know as ShopText.” But I believe it should say, “and is known as..”
*You have, “This proved to be very success because of the versatility of the phone to computer system,” and I think it should be “to be very successful..”
*You are also using different texts in the body of your paper.
*”There is extensive information in this particular article that is very information and useful for further research into this topic with this device.” It should be informational.
*I am not going to keep listing all of the little typos and grammatical errors, but I highly suggest you thoroughly read through your paper because there is a bunch.
All in all, the paper is great. I can see you really put a lot of effort into this paper. There are just some simple spelling and grammatical errors that can be easily overlooked. Keep up the good work!
Submitted by Kendraly16 on Mon, 03/24/2008 - 22:13.
• Analyze the structure of the paper. Could any section(s) or paragraph(s) be reorganized?
Considering the outline of the various sections given by the headings, is the overall structure the best way to organize the paper?
I don’t know if your paper looked the way it does when I pull it up but the sections are half way between pages and such. It just needs to be altered a little. Your introduction is nice and gives a nice preview of what you are going to talk about.
• Check to see if the white paper has an argument within it about the topic under investigation, and comment on whether this argument is clear enough to you as a reader.
I can only guess what your argument is, however I feel like it could be a little more clearly stated.
• Point out which sections in the paper you feel are most important and least important. Since the paper will be heavily reduced in length, describe sections/paragraphs that might be summarized or eliminated all together.
I think the “PDA Technology” could be shortened quite a bit. It is a nice introduction into your body, however it doesn’t need to be that long. Write a couple sentences about each, not paragraphs.
• Note wherever the writing is unclear to you or where you feel something needs to be explained more. Were there any concepts or terms that you did not understand? Are there any particular areas in the paper which deserve to be expanded because you feel they are important topics?
This ties into the argument…why do you explain the different PDA’s and then talk about the different email applications? That is a little unclear to me.
• Note in the paper anywhere where you feel the authors are stating their own opinions rather than reporting on what their research says.
You did a really good job stating facts instead of opinions.
• Note any problems you might observe with how the paper fits the white paper genre.
I think you fit the white paper genre very well.
• Important: Since documentation of sources is a critically important aspect of professional research, if you notice any citation problems in MLA format, point them out to the authors.
I just looked through the bibliography briefly, but it looks good to me.
*One thing that I wanted to let you know is in the “A Word Before..” paragraph, you have “One of the most advanced forms of email technology is through text messaging, and is know as ShopText.” But I believe it should say, “and is known as..”
*You have, “This proved to be very success because of the versatility of the phone to computer system,” and I think it should be “to be very successful..”
*You are also using different texts in the body of your paper.
*”There is extensive information in this particular article that is very information and useful for further research into this topic with this device.” It should be informational.
*I am not going to keep listing all of the little typos and grammatical errors, but I highly suggest you thoroughly read through your paper because there is a bunch.
All in all, the paper is great. I can see you really put a lot of effort into this paper. There are just some simple spelling and grammatical errors that can be easily overlooked. Keep up the good work!
I think that the structure of your paper looks really good. Everything is very organized and put in a sensible order. The only thing that I would consider reorganizing is the table of contents. I am not sure if you meant for it to be uneven, but it is kind of hard to read that way. This could have just been a mishap when you put everything together. I think that your titles are put in a good order, but maybe making them different sizes considering that some of them are subpoints to the major parts. This will just make it even more clear. Your argument is very clear, that you believe technology has come a long way and that it will keep expanding in coming years. Your supporting points are also clear when you explain the most popular forms of PDA and shoptext. I feel that the shoptext and PDA technology sections are very long compared to the other sections so maybe you could consider cutting that down a bit. I dont think that you can eliminate any sections because they are all important to your paper. If you just go through and make sure that you are sticking to the main points, then I think you should be able to cut out a lot of information. While reading through your paper, I feel that your group did a really good job explaining all of the different terms. I didn't know anything about these different terms and products and I understood all of the explanations. The only place that you have used your opinion instead of the research that you have found is in the very beginning when you say "and we believe it will continue to advance for several more years." I don't know if this is necessarily wrong in this paper because I think you are right in saying that, but I am not sure if we are not allowed to do that. This definitely looks like a white paper to me. It is organized and it has a really nice design to it. I am sure that you guys are going to do a great job! It looks good so far!
I just wanted to thank the three of you for your comments in reviewing our white paper's first draft. When going through to revise my own section and then my peers' I seriously took into consideration your comments. One that was most helpful was to not go into the histories of our technologies in such depth. This made it much easier to focus on the technologies for their use and their significance in the changing nature of email. I also found it helpful to think about our section headings. While we didn't change them, it forced me and our group members to think about our rhetorical choices, and for this I thank you!
Peer Review
Overall, the format of your white paper looks great! I really like the appearance because it is very clean and appealing to the eye. It is simple, yet very professional. The introduction gives a nice preview of what is to come and the headings and sections are organized well. I believe your argument would be that email is constantly changing and that your white paper gives a few options of the best technologies out there today.
Since you will have to cut down significantly on the text, almost 2,000 words, there are parts that would be easier to take out. The history in PDA technology is nice, but not necessary. I think you would be able to take out the entire second paragraph (To fully understand…Motorola Q) under that section. The first paragraph explains the history well enough.
The only issue that I have is with your title being “The Changing Nature of Email”. To me it seems like the topic of ShopText does not exactly fit under this title. I really loved the section on ShopText, but I think if you want to keep it you should maybe consider revising your title. I do not really have any good ideas because the rest of the white paper is about email, but to me the shopping online doesn’t fall under email, it falls under internet, or something less specific. But if you cannot change your title, I understand that it would be hard, I think you could get by with keeping ShopText in there. It just really caught me off guard and seemed like a random section. I would also cut out several of the paragraphs that are very specific, like the paragraph about how it has changed the music scene. It is very interesting, but since your group will basically have to eliminate half of your information, some of that stuff should go first.
For the MiPad section of the paper, I got a little lost in the first paragraph because there were so many different things cited. This broke it up in several places and I would try to fix that by using footnotes instead or by getting rid of some of those specific facts. If you do not want to get rid of them all together, you can move them to other paragraphs. Also, if you need to take parts out of this section to make your final draft shorter, I would keep all of the information specific to email, but some of the specific information about its development from the first few paragraphs can go. I really like the fourth paragraph though. That connects well with the title.
The Mozilla Thunderbird section is very nice. It has a lot of good information about email and the benefits of new programs today. It fits well with the title and what I have considered to be your argument (best new email technologies).
Have you considered a short conclusion to wrap everything up? You might want to think about the possibility, but once again with the limited word count, one might not be necessary. I’m not an expert with white papers, so I do not know how much of a difference it makes by including/ not including one.
I scanned through your bibliography page and it looked good. I did not check to see if every source was cited correctly, but you all did such a nice job on the paper, I am sure you put forth the same effort in citing your sources.
*Note - Typo in the first paragraph under Thunderbird 2.0: misspelled worth as wroth…just wanted to point it out!
Well done! I enjoyed reading your white paper and good luck revising it for your final draft!
Kendraly16's Peer Review
• Analyze the structure of the paper. Could any section(s) or paragraph(s) be reorganized?
Considering the outline of the various sections given by the headings, is the overall structure the best way to organize the paper?
I don’t know if your paper looked the way it does when I pull it up but the sections are half way between pages and such. It just needs to be altered a little. Your introduction is nice and gives a nice preview of what you are going to talk about.
• Check to see if the white paper has an argument within it about the topic under investigation, and comment on whether this argument is clear enough to you as a reader.
I can only guess what your argument is, however I feel like it could be a little more clearly stated.
• Point out which sections in the paper you feel are most important and least important. Since the paper will be heavily reduced in length, describe sections/paragraphs that might be summarized or eliminated all together.
I think the “PDA Technology” could be shortened quite a bit. It is a nice introduction into your body, however it doesn’t need to be that long. Write a couple sentences about each, not paragraphs.
• Note wherever the writing is unclear to you or where you feel something needs to be explained more. Were there any concepts or terms that you did not understand? Are there any particular areas in the paper which deserve to be expanded because you feel they are important topics?
This ties into the argument…why do you explain the different PDA’s and then talk about the different email applications? That is a little unclear to me.
• Note in the paper anywhere where you feel the authors are stating their own opinions rather than reporting on what their research says.
You did a really good job stating facts instead of opinions.
• Note any problems you might observe with how the paper fits the white paper genre.
I think you fit the white paper genre very well.
• Important: Since documentation of sources is a critically important aspect of professional research, if you notice any citation problems in MLA format, point them out to the authors.
I just looked through the bibliography briefly, but it looks good to me.
*One thing that I wanted to let you know is in the “A Word Before..” paragraph, you have “One of the most advanced forms of email technology is through text messaging, and is know as ShopText.” But I believe it should say, “and is known as..”
*You have, “This proved to be very success because of the versatility of the phone to computer system,” and I think it should be “to be very successful..”
*You are also using different texts in the body of your paper.
*”There is extensive information in this particular article that is very information and useful for further research into this topic with this device.” It should be informational.
*I am not going to keep listing all of the little typos and grammatical errors, but I highly suggest you thoroughly read through your paper because there is a bunch.
All in all, the paper is great. I can see you really put a lot of effort into this paper. There are just some simple spelling and grammatical errors that can be easily overlooked. Keep up the good work!
Kendraly16's Peer Review
• Analyze the structure of the paper. Could any section(s) or paragraph(s) be reorganized?
Considering the outline of the various sections given by the headings, is the overall structure the best way to organize the paper?
I don’t know if your paper looked the way it does when I pull it up but the sections are half way between pages and such. It just needs to be altered a little. Your introduction is nice and gives a nice preview of what you are going to talk about.
• Check to see if the white paper has an argument within it about the topic under investigation, and comment on whether this argument is clear enough to you as a reader.
I can only guess what your argument is, however I feel like it could be a little more clearly stated.
• Point out which sections in the paper you feel are most important and least important. Since the paper will be heavily reduced in length, describe sections/paragraphs that might be summarized or eliminated all together.
I think the “PDA Technology” could be shortened quite a bit. It is a nice introduction into your body, however it doesn’t need to be that long. Write a couple sentences about each, not paragraphs.
• Note wherever the writing is unclear to you or where you feel something needs to be explained more. Were there any concepts or terms that you did not understand? Are there any particular areas in the paper which deserve to be expanded because you feel they are important topics?
This ties into the argument…why do you explain the different PDA’s and then talk about the different email applications? That is a little unclear to me.
• Note in the paper anywhere where you feel the authors are stating their own opinions rather than reporting on what their research says.
You did a really good job stating facts instead of opinions.
• Note any problems you might observe with how the paper fits the white paper genre.
I think you fit the white paper genre very well.
• Important: Since documentation of sources is a critically important aspect of professional research, if you notice any citation problems in MLA format, point them out to the authors.
I just looked through the bibliography briefly, but it looks good to me.
*One thing that I wanted to let you know is in the “A Word Before..” paragraph, you have “One of the most advanced forms of email technology is through text messaging, and is know as ShopText.” But I believe it should say, “and is known as..”
*You have, “This proved to be very success because of the versatility of the phone to computer system,” and I think it should be “to be very successful..”
*You are also using different texts in the body of your paper.
*”There is extensive information in this particular article that is very information and useful for further research into this topic with this device.” It should be informational.
*I am not going to keep listing all of the little typos and grammatical errors, but I highly suggest you thoroughly read through your paper because there is a bunch.
All in all, the paper is great. I can see you really put a lot of effort into this paper. There are just some simple spelling and grammatical errors that can be easily overlooked. Keep up the good work!
Peer Review
I think that the structure of your paper looks really good. Everything is very organized and put in a sensible order. The only thing that I would consider reorganizing is the table of contents. I am not sure if you meant for it to be uneven, but it is kind of hard to read that way. This could have just been a mishap when you put everything together. I think that your titles are put in a good order, but maybe making them different sizes considering that some of them are subpoints to the major parts. This will just make it even more clear. Your argument is very clear, that you believe technology has come a long way and that it will keep expanding in coming years. Your supporting points are also clear when you explain the most popular forms of PDA and shoptext. I feel that the shoptext and PDA technology sections are very long compared to the other sections so maybe you could consider cutting that down a bit. I dont think that you can eliminate any sections because they are all important to your paper. If you just go through and make sure that you are sticking to the main points, then I think you should be able to cut out a lot of information. While reading through your paper, I feel that your group did a really good job explaining all of the different terms. I didn't know anything about these different terms and products and I understood all of the explanations. The only place that you have used your opinion instead of the research that you have found is in the very beginning when you say "and we believe it will continue to advance for several more years." I don't know if this is necessarily wrong in this paper because I think you are right in saying that, but I am not sure if we are not allowed to do that. This definitely looks like a white paper to me. It is organized and it has a really nice design to it. I am sure that you guys are going to do a great job! It looks good so far!
Thanks for the help!
I just wanted to thank the three of you for your comments in reviewing our white paper's first draft. When going through to revise my own section and then my peers' I seriously took into consideration your comments. One that was most helpful was to not go into the histories of our technologies in such depth. This made it much easier to focus on the technologies for their use and their significance in the changing nature of email. I also found it helpful to think about our section headings. While we didn't change them, it forced me and our group members to think about our rhetorical choices, and for this I thank you!