Document Development Exposition: White Paper

Explain in detail your document’s development from planning to finish, describing your
challenges, how you overcame them, and what you learned.

Planning
I began this assignment with the prep document. My biggest challenge at this point was choosing my
organization and my primary audience. I first considered writing the report as an employee of the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In this scenario, I would be investigating the current status of the
Venus flytrap in consideration of adding it to the endangered species list. However, I quickly found
that this would limit the contents of my paper to a painstaking bureaucratic process. I tried to work
with this idea, but as I researched it further, I grew more dissatisfied. Thus, I went on to find an
organization that would be more proactive and more involved at the local level. This taught me to
explore ideas outside of my most obvious first choice.

First Draft (for peer editing)

Though I had a general outline at this point, I still struggled to organize this paper. What threw me
off the most was the idea of having both a solution statement and a section that describes how the
solution will solve the problem. I fear being repetitive in my writing; it annoys me when I have to say
the same thing in different words multiple times throughout my paper. However, I had to start
thinking of the context of the assignment. In the real world, this report would be presented to a busy
authoritative figure. They might not necessarily read the text in its entirety. Thus, it makes sense to
repeat statements throughout so that each section can stand on its own. I would try to keep this in
mind for future assignments.

Second Draft (for your packet)

I struggled to incorporate my peers’ suggestions into this draft. Firstly, only one of my group
members responded. It would have been nice to have a third opinion. The one that did reply made
some comments about my fonts that I wholeheartedly agreed with. They pointed out that I should
make use of another font besides Times New Roman. I often forget to play with my font, though this
helps distinguish different sections of the document. However, they also said my tone was too
formal. I read through my paper a couple of times to try and understand what would have made
them feel this way. After much deliberation, I had to respectfully disagree with this point; I felt that
my tone suited the assignment. This reminded me that we are all still learning. Having another’s
insight can be helpful, but they are not always right.

Final Draft (for your portfolio)

At the suggestion of my peer, I changed my headers. However, I went a bit overboard with the
effects to compensate. This led to my headings looking like hyperlinks. I made this mistake in another
document, as pointed out by a different editing group member. I addressed this, and I made the
different levels of subheadings the same font to maintain repetition. There was also an instance of
jargon that I had to define and an unclear key on one of the figures. These were more reminders that
I always need to keep my audience in mind. It also emphasizes why it is so important to have others
look at your work. Both were errors that I overlooked dozens of times; it is hard for one’s brain to
catch its own mistakes.