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White Paper World 53: January 16, 2025


Read in 7 minutes. Listen in 12.5 minutes:


left hand holding coffee cup and right hand doing review of a white paper

Quick tip: To review a draft, change your mindset

1-minute read. 

Here’s a tip I heard many years ago from a freelance journalist.

To revise a draft, go to a different room.

Or go to your local coffee shop and read it there. The key is to change your location.

That’s not all.

1. Review your draft on paper, not on-screen.

Reading on paper seems to engage our brains to help us notice and remember details. That’s exactly what you want when you’re revising.

2. Change your clothes.

Go from home-office sweats to a work outfit. Go from slippers to real shoes.

That tells your subconscious that you’re going to see your client.

3. Change your music.

Turn it on, off, up, down. Whatever you do, change it from however you normally listen.

I personally like jazz with no lyrics, like Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. Lyrics in a song seem to distract me from words on a page.

4. Change your lighting.

Ideally, sit down by a window with natural sunlight.

Sunlight seems to improve our focus and elevate our mood, perhaps by increasing serotonin and reducing cortisol.

The point is to change everything you can

The more you change in your environment, the easier it is to see your work with fresh eyes.

You want to look at your draft as though someone else wrote it.

That way, you can be more objective and quickly zero in on the rough parts you need to fix.

I know this sounds silly. But it works for me.

Next time you have a draft white paper to revise, why not give this a try? See if it works for you too.

 


This just in: White papers trending in 12 fields!

1-minute read. 

Whoever said, “White papers are dead!” didn’t see the latest report from Netline.

In collaboration with with Marketing Profs, the syndication and research service just published the “2025 Content Trends & Planning Guide.”

That shows white papers in the top three formats for all these markets:

Click the cover to get the PDF

• Advertising and marketing
• Corporate and professional services
• Education
• Engineering
• Finance
• Government
• Healthcare
• HR
• Manufacturing
• Retail
• Tech
• Utility and energy

 

Ebooks are there too, in 11 out of the 12 of these markets (not HR, for some reason).

So if you’re writing for any of those niches, have no fear! The work is still here!

This report is based on 8 million pieces of B2B content downloaded from Netline’s site. So that’s first-party data from registered prospects, the gold standard for research on content trends.

The takeaway: Companies in many industries still publish tons of white papers. So there’s work out there if you chase it.

Myself, I just finished a white paper for a fintech firm in New York City. My next one is for a local government IT firm in the UK.

 


AI helping revise a white paper in a modern office

How to: Revise a white paper with AI

4-minute read. 

I recently had to apply many comments to a draft white paper on a tight deadline. And AI saved my bacon.

I had dozens of comments from five reviewers on a complex subject.

Some comments were easy, like swapping one word for another.

But others were more challenging, like adding a whole new concept to a section.

My client said the white paper was going to be public anyway, so they had no restrictions on using AI.

How tight was that deadline?

I got the comments on Wednesday afternoon and promised the client a fresh draft by Monday morning.

Silly me. I already had commitments in the evenings and on the weekend.

But the client really needed the white paper to support the launch of their new service.

So I worked around my commitments and pulled two late nights.

Then the weekend was mine (with a couple of naps!)

I did a final read-through on Sunday night and put in my last touchups. And the revision was waiting for my client on Monday morning, as promised.

They reviewed it quickly and absolutely loved the new draft.

And their final, final comments were things I could deal with in a few minutes.

a taller pile of paper labeled "no AI" beside a much shorter pile of paper labeled "with AI"

ChatGPT was a fantastic help

To be honest, I couldn’t have  worked on that timeline without some remarkable help from ChatGPT 4o.

In a previous article just a few months ago, I published a guesstimate that AI could save 25% of the time it takes to handle comments. That was a lowball estimate!

I figure on this project AI saved me 65% of the time it would otherwise have taken me to deal with all those comments.

That means I would have been grinding all weekend and still needed until Wednesday or Thursday to get my client a fresh draft.

Here are some of the steps I went through and the things I learned about revising a white paper with AI.

Please redo this entire comment so align with Jim's views in handwriting

The toughest comment of all

Here’s the comment that gave me the most pause:

“Please redo this entire section to align with Jim’s views…”

Jim’s views were found in a blog post, two published interviews, several further articles, and a fistful of press releases.

My heart sank, as I imagined that taking half a day I didn’t have.

ChatGPT wasn’t worried. It just asked me to input that material for it to scan.

So I found those articles online, saved them as PDFs, and clicked the red paperclip in ChatGPT’s chat window to upload them one by one.

ChatGPT chatbot showing paperclip icon you click to upload a file

After I uploaded three pieces, it zipped off a list of Jim’s key opinions and a complete rewrite for that 300-word section.

Every time I uploaded another article, it did another tweak to encompass any new concepts in that latest input.

I was astounded by ChatGPT’s insane speed at scanning text, its grasp of the material, and its decent-quality drafts.

So that comment I’d been dreading only took about 20 minutes to handle. And half of that time was spent finding and uploading Jim’s articles!

 

hands on keyboard with ChatGPT floating in air

My initial prompt for revising a white paper draft

Here’s the initial prompt I used to start that project.

You are a seasoned technical and content writer for the [specific sector] industry with a special focus on [specific subject].

I am a white paper writer and a very picky editor. I have a white paper draft that’s just been reviewed by the client. I need your help to answer questions, polish up passages, and deal with the comments.

That seemed to work well. I wanted the AI to know we were”colleagues” and  wouldn’t put up with any vague writing.

And it seemed to get the message.

Here are some queries I used

Notice how informal and scattershot my requests were.

Please give me some synonyms for [overused cliche]. How else could I say that?

The AI instantly showed me a list of 10 alternative phrases. One popped out of the list as the ideal term.

Is [phrase] a common expression among developers? I’ve never heard that. I’d like to find a simpler way to say it.

The AI confirmed that the expression was popular among software engineers, yet suggested some more reader-friendly terms.

Another clunky passage. Can you polish this up without dropping any of the key ideas?

I pasted a reviewer’s less-than-elegant rewrite right in the middle of a paragraph, and showed the AI the disjointed mess. It adroitly revised two paragraphs to include the reviewer’s sentiments.

Here come some disorganized paragraphs. Can you please rewrite to be more clear and less wordy but keep the nuances? Take 2 or 3 tries.

The AI showed me three different rewrites, labeled:

  • Option 1: Clear and direct
  • Option 2: Concise and professional
  • Option 3: Polished and nuanced

I asked it combine 1 and 2, and it did, as fast as the text could scroll up on my screen.

ChatGPT 4o did a serviceable job at every level, far better than I’ve ever seen it write before. I am impressed.

I still had to rewrite many sentences to meet my high standards, but the AI got me over the hump with that project.

robot shaking hands with human to signfiy partnership

Conclusions

Years ago, a client praised me as “a no-headache guy” who just takes away a project and does it, without complaining or soaking up a lot of his time.

ChatGPT 4o worked exactly that way on this revision.

Whatever I threw at it, it handled without complaints. Its no-headache suggestions saved me many hours of effort.

And beyond that, it felt good to have a “buddy” working with me into the wee hours when nothing was stirring, not even a mouse.

As long as my client is okay with it, I’m planning to use AI from now to to help handle a deluge of comments and speed up this step of doing a white paper.

 


three timelines converging into the past present and future of white papers

Coming in 2025: Past, present, and future white papers

1-minute read. 

This year this newsletter will continue to cover all things related to white papers.

The past: I recently discovered a document that pushes back the history of this format by more than 100 years. I’ll unveil it soon, along with the lessons today’s white paper writers can learn from this document.

The present: I have many more quick tips, how-to’s, and white paper samples to share with you this year. I’ve learned a lot from more than 25 years writing white papers, and I’m still learning today.

And the future: I’m working on something that could reshape how white papers are done from now on. Of course, it uses AI as an assistant to speed up many tasks and help you succeed.

Don’t worry: This assistant will never replace white paper writers.

But it will save you lots of time and help you finish a white paper easier than ever. And at least to start, the price will be free.

So open my newsletters and email. You know I don’t send many.

And get ready to find out more than about the past, present, and future of white papers from yours truly, That White Paper Guy.

 


If you like this newsletter…

Here are three ways to support it.

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cover of White Papers For Dummies book

 

2. Buy my book White Papers For Dummies. It’s been called “priceless… terrific… outstanding… fantastic…  excellent in every way.”

And for less than $20, it’s a steal.

3. Pass it on: Forward this newsletter to any of your writer buddies who would appreciate these useful tips and guidance.

Gordon Graham, That White Paper Guy

                Gordon Graham
            That White Paper Guy

              

To get every future issue, visit: www.thatwhitepaperguy.com/subscribe/

See all the previous issues here:
www.thatwhitepaperguy.com/newsletters/

Listen to the audios here:
https://thatwhitepaperguy.com/podcasts/

And good luck with all your writing projects, all through 2025.

 

About Gordon Graham

Worked on 328 white papers for clients from Silicon Valley to Switzerland, on everything from choosing enterprise software to designing virtual worlds for kids, for clients from tiny startups to 3M, Google, and Verizon. Wrote White Papers for Dummies which earned 60+ 5-star ratings on Amazon. Won 16 awards from the Society for Technical Communication. Named AWAI 2019 Copywriter of the Year.

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