By Ashlyn Burke

Last week, students in The Profession of Technical Communication (TECM 2800) welcomed industry guest and award-winning technical writer Gordon Graham to learn about white papers.

The students of TECM 2800 recently began work on their first client project with NetScout. They are repurposing content from an existing white paper into blog posts.

Expert Gordon Graham was invited to give students advice on how to read white papers to better understand the reasons tech companies produce them and what their audience values about them. He has written more than 266 white papers as a freelance writer and is also the author of White Papers for Dummies, rated among the top 7 books by the Content Marketing Institute.

In his lecture, Graham touches on the art of reading white papers and strategies to improve them. He explains that white papers have become increasingly popular because they promise some "meat" and not just an "advertising blurb or thinly-veiled brochure." You can view his talk here.

Graham also discusses the 3 main "flavors" of white papers: backgrounders, numbered lists, and problem/solution formats. He compares these formats to flavors of ice cream to distinguish how different they are. His comparisons and insights are major topics in his book White Papers for Dummies and made for an interesting class discussion.