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
The planning phase for this white paper was a little tricky. Ocean acidification is a broad topic with
many complex ideas, and I had to try to find a way to condense everything into the packet. My
biggest worry going in was not being able to explain the concepts concisely. I approached the
planning by getting a good document style and finding good resources with helpful information.
In general, I think this is the most complex and difficult project we have done this semester.

First Draft (for peer editing)

My first draft had a lot of information. I realize now that a lot of my ideas were repeated throughout
the document, while I didn’t elaborate as heavily on the points I was trying to get across. Peer review
suggested finding ways to consolidate these ideas instead of repeating them, which I would attempt
to do for the second draft.

Second Draft (for your packet)

My second draft felt a lot more complete compared to my first draft. I had added my abstract and
gotten a better sense of what I was writing about. My biggest issue was detailing how the problem
affected humanity. I wanted the reader to understand that although this issue seems unimportant, it
can have dire consequences for everyone. Some of my styling was off in this draft, however I think
the bulk of my information was there. It just needed some refining.

Final Draft (for your portfolio)

I think my final draft does a better job of describing the issues I presented with ocean acidification.
My restructuring the document, there is a much easier to read problem and solution. I made some
stylistic changes that I think helped the presentation, such as switching to block style. I added my
table of figures and citations in places where they were needed. This assignment has easily been the
most difficult for me this semester, mainly due to the struggle of explaining the dangers of the
problem. However, I think I have improved at explaining the problem and how people can fix the
problem. I do think that if I had to redo everything, I would have chosen a less broad topic, as even
ocean acidification is a tad too broad for this. I think having a more concrete problem and solution in
the beginning would have made things much easier.