billso.com

Sometimes students ask me for examples of “white papers”. In IT, a “white paper” is an article or a case study that is posted or distributed by a hardware or software vendor. It usually features at least one happy customer, and discusses the positive points of specific products and services in glowing detail. I often lump corporate web sites into this category.

I usually tell students to avoid citing white papers and marketing literature in their assignments, because these sources are almost always biased towards the company that paid the writers.

This Apple page is a good example of a white paper. I’m surprised that there are no easy-to-find links to PDF or printable versions of this article.

I can’t imagine walking into a business meeting armed with ‘facts’ I found in white papers. That’s the perspective I take when I’m grading - I’m a CXO. That’s one reason why industry magazines are helpful, as their reviews tend to compare products and services on an equal basis. Occasionally, we might see white papers that read like industry research, including comparisons with products and services from other vendors.

Until someone rigs up a crapometer to detect marketing blather, it’s really up to the reader to determine how much trust they will place in a white paper. For my part, I find white papers interesting and funny, but I need to see more authoritative sources before I make up my mind.