Project 2 Reflection

By doing project two, I learned many key ideas and tools in order to research properly, and exactly what a white paper is, along with its purpose. I learned that a white paper is usually created by a business organization or the government, and its purpose is to inform readers about a subject, propose a problem, and create their own solution to the problem that readers will hopefully support. I also learned about document design, and how each writing genre has its own design that distinguishes it from others. A white paper has a title, with headings and subheadings, it can have graphs, and charts, and it has at least three subheadings. These include an introduction, research section, and a solution/proposal section. I learned all of this through research online, lessons in class, and resources given to us by Dr. Wilgar. The other important aspect to this project is learning how to research a writing genre in a given academic discipline, which the library day was very helpful in showing us how to do that and what recourses are better than others, This means diving deep into databases and looking for a very specific topic of what writing is like in the professional field of accounting. This could be difficult because it can require reading between the lines because not a lot of databases are going to have the answer right there. I also conducted an in person interview with my accounting teacher, Dr. Massey, who was extremely helpful in informing me on all the different genres there is in accounting, because it is not all about the numbers. Accountants write about various topics in various genres all day long. This new knowledge is significant because in the future I plan to be a business major and its important to become familiar with all the different writing that’s required, because writing in the field is becoming more and more important. The new knowledge is also important because research is conducted all the time, and there is no doubt that I will need this knowledge in the future whether its for another in class project or in my future career. To prepare for project 3, I have to start thinking about what makes me, me. I have to think about my interest, goals, work, and personalty in order to make an online self portrait that presents my rhetorical version of myself.