Cover
A map or photo, about 7 × 1.4 inches. Optional.
Parts of the report
Turn off any part you do not need. A part that is on but empty is left out.
You can open a White Paper Builder project with Open project: its title, summary, body, visuals, appendix, and sources come across.
The brand stays in this browser when you start a new report. Save it to a file to use it on another computer or to keep more than one.
Identity
PNG or SVG with a transparent background works best. Shown on the cover and the last page.
Look
Last page
One page for a reader who will read nothing else. About 350 words in all. Notes and citations work here too.
What the topic is, why it matters now, and the one thing to know. A blank line starts a new paragraph.
Depth
Treatment and confidence
The number of sources and how many are rated A or B is added for you.
Takeaways and decisions
Three to five. End a line with | High, | Moderate, or | Low to show your confidence in it.
What you need the reader to decide or answer. Numbered D1, D2.
What the reader must keep in mind: sensitivities, legal or safety risks, places where accuracy is easy to lose, audience expectations, timing.
The label prints in the margin: Sensitivity, Legal, Accuracy, Audience, Timing, or your own.
How to write the research
Where accounts, experts, or sources disagree, and what is still unknown.
? The question people disagree on + One view: who holds it, and their best evidence. + Another view: who holds it, and their best evidence. = Where the evidence points, and how sure you are.
Reference material the reader can look things up in.
Dates such as March 3, 2022 keep their own comma.
Charts, tables, timelines, key numbers, and images. Give each one a short name, then place it in the research or an appendix with [[name]] on a line of its own. Figures and tables are numbered in the order they appear.
Open the list files you saved in the OSINT Citation Generator. Each source gets a short key: write [@key] or [@key, p. 45] in any text. Here you also grade each source, say what it is good for, and choose where it is listed in the source assessment.
Use *asterisks* for italics. A page number in [@key, p. 4] goes before the final period.
No sources yet. You can still write notes by hand with ^[note text].
Grades: a letter for the source (A highly reliable to F unknown) and a number for the information (1 confirmed to 6 unknown), as in the OSINT Style Guide. For sources from a list file, the grade is the one in the citation.
Each # heading starts Appendix A, B, C. ## headings are numbered A.1, A.2. [[rating-key]] adds the full source rating key table.
The last page. Turn it off under Report. Prepared by and for, the marking, the disclaimer, and the logo come from Report and Brand.