Informational Articles – Technical & Scientific Communication

By Jennifer Mooney, Director, Technical & Scientific Communication Program
Department of English, Virginia Tech

Informational Articles. Informational Reports. White Papers. Regardless of how it is formatted or presented, all of these documents inform their readers about a subject. Whether it takes the form of a report, a guide, a “book,” or a simple “paper,” what we are going to call in this course an informational article is both informative and authoritative.

As you are working on this unit, try to forget the fact that there are multiple terms used interchangeably to describe what you are doing. The term “white paper” has multiple definitions, for example, but Margaret Rouse explains it quite succinctly as “an article that states an organization’s position or philosophy about a social, political, or other subject, or a not-too-detailed technical explanation of an architecture, framework, or product technology.”

Although informational articles and white papers technically are reports — because they report on a subject for readers or inform readers about a subject — they do not include all of the formalized elements found in the latter.

Such documents come from a variety of sources. Most often, governmental white papers establish or publicize policies and laws. The white paper Full Employment in Australia (1945), for example, set forth policies designed to provide for broader-based employment after World War II. In the US, findings and recommendations in the white paper or report Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society (1966) helped establish the emergency medical services.

Today, governments often make their policy papers available online. For example, US Government white papers are available at the National Archives site. And from the the United Kingdom’s government site, you can download such items as Department of Health policy papers on providing housing support for elderly and vulnerable populations.

If they are not explaining policies, informational reports commonly introduce new technologies, including innovations and products. For example, “Breaking the Barriers of 3D Visualization” is a report presented to the Department of Defense Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative: 3D Visualization by Virginia Tech researchers.

These documents, though, are much more focused toward a specific audience — fellow politicians, health care advocates, scientific peers — than the sort you will be producing for this course. Instead, consider the types of articles you might find in a regional magazine, in a newspaper, or online:

“How Animal Rescue Volunteers Create Happily Ever Afters,” for example, informs readers about what it is like to work for a rescue organization. “Every single animal has a story,” says a volunteer in the article. “Some are interesting, some are exciting—and some break our hearts.”
Tim Dickinson’s “What Megablazes Tell Us About the Fiery Future of Climate Change,” in Rolling Stone‘s online edition, tells the story of how ongoing drought and rising temperatures have created dangerous conditions in California.
“‘A Mainstay of the System’: Roanoke’s Deputy Prosecutor Steps Down After Nearly 30 Years” (Neil Harvey, The Roanoke Times) profiles Betty Jo Anthony as she prepares to step down from a job she has held for three decades.

These three examples have something very important in common: They simultaneously inform readers about a subject and create profiles — of organizations, of situations or problems, of people.

A good informational article provides necessary background on a subject by answering the Reporter’s Questions, also known as the Five Ws:

What?
Why?
When?
Who?
Where?

However, if you think about it, answers to those questions could be provided in boxes on a questionnaire. In and of themselves, they provide data, but they do not fully engage the reader in the subject. A good article will go a step beyond and make the subject come alive for readers by

incorporating quotations from subjects being interviewed,
using visual language to place the reader in the scene, and
adding illustrations, including photographs, to complement the story being told.

An informational article might be short and simple, two to three pages of information about a new organization in town, or it might be longer and more complex, a five page standalone document, complete with figures, diagrams, and equations. Your goal in this module will be to present an effectively-detailed document that is engaging to the reader, logically organized, and reader friendly in design, style, and tone.