Formal Memo

This exercise engages you to work on your ability to create a memo specific to an audience. The goal of this exercise is to write a relatively long memo where you address a topic and:

• inform your chosen audience
• analyze the topic ( in relation to the audience)
• make a recommendation to the audience regarding the topic.

For the assignment we were allowed to choose any of these options, I chose to write a recommendation memo.

Step One: Formulating the memo, the most important part of this assignment is having a clear and specific audience and goal. A quick way to make sure that your audience is specific enough is pick one person who fits your audience and write the memo to that person. Dr. Fricke provided us with a worksheet to help us to define our audience and define our issue in relation to that audience. I chose to address the head of Housing & Residence Life about the current conditions of the Wall/Gates showers.

* Hint: Choose something that interests you! It is always easier to write about something you don’t mind reading about : )

Step Two was to collect research on my topic in order to support my argument. I wanted to show to the head of Housing and Residence Life that the restrooms have a negative impact on the student body. I found an article from a news station about the dangers of showers: Shared showers are perfect breeding ground for bacteria. I also found another article to support my argument in a paper written by another student: Dormitory Bathrooms.

*Hint: Be certain that all the research you do relates to your audience and topic. It will make your argument a lot stronger.

I modeled my memo after the example memo that Dr. Fricke provided us with. I also used the step by step method which he showed us in the class Powerpoints. I have attached the memo that I turned in to Dr. Fricke to this post. Hopefully this will help give you some ideas.
One thing I learned :If I could resubmit this assignment I would change the focus of the memo. The memo was to lengthy to be directed to a head of a large department. Instead I could direct it to a student organization who would be willing to take the time to read the memo. A student organization would also be able to start a plan to correct the conditions.

What I Learned: This assignment taught me the importance of editing and rereading an assignment before turning it in. For this assignment the class was given another chance to submit the assignment. The minor changes I made during the editing session really improved my overall grade.

Below are the files that I turned in to Dr. Fricke:

Formal Memo