White Paper Pundit

One of the attributes that authors will often use in a solution section of a white paper are what I refer to as descriptive paragraph starters.

This text feature is used when you want the reader to pay special attention to a particular solution characteristic. The descriptive text immediately following the leading descriptor helps the reader better understand the benefits of that attribute. The use of either bold, italics, underlining or some combination is often used to enhance the descriptive starter.

There are three ways that you can use descriptive paragraph starters:

1. The Run-on Starter is used when the descriptor and the body copy flow together as a contiguous statement. An example of this style would be:

Acme Freight Management provides a solid transportation execution system that will automatically select the lowest cost carrier, consolidate loads, and provide carrier-approved labels and electronic manifesting for all modes of shipment, from parcel deliveries to ocean containers.

2. The Dashed Starter – This style is used when the descriptive starter needs to isolated from the paragraph text and identified as as standalone attribute. A period can also be used instead of the dash. This is often used when the solution has a series of components that should each be identified along with their own descriptive paragraph. The example below would be one one characteristic within a series of descriptive characteristics:

PDF Spam – Another form of spam is PDF spam, where a spammer distributes an e-mail message along with a PDF attachment. To date, PDF spam accounts for about 4 percent of all spam messages sent, yet this format could prove to be significantly more malicious than image spam.

3. The Colon Starter: This style is used when the descriptive attribute is either part of a collective solution or has a series of sub-components within that attribute. An example of this style would be:

Transaction: Key metrics a sales force uses to measure the sales process including: Sales Deal Size, Sales per Existing Customer, Sales per New Customer, and Sales Price Variance.

So when you want solution features to stand out and be noticed, use paragraph starters. Your readers will appreciate them and better understand the specific solution benefits in your white paper.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 at 10:07 am and is filed under White Paper Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.