Writing – Professional Memo/Letter Writing
Assignment
Write two different professional communications, and analyze the different contexts, strategies, and processes required to complete the tasks. One communication should be to an internal audience. The second communication should be to an external audience. The third piece a Cover Letter, Self-Analysis, or Reflection in which you describe in detail your design choices, strategies, and specific audience and context considerations for each memo. You may draw ideas from the options provided below. However, I highly recommend you adapt/invent your own situation.* See below for audience and “rhetorical situation” considerations.
Requirements
The 3 parts to this assignment should be submitted with page breaks as one single document (PDF or Word only)
2 professional communications (business memo or letter), in real-world formatting. These must be at least 300 words each (closer to 400 is recommended).
Part 3: Self-reflection (2-3 pages or 600-900 words) that describes in detail your design choices, strategies, and specific audience and context considerations for each memo. You may also include reflections on their pre- or post-writing process, or other similar observations. One good question to consider answering in this Part 3 is, what is it about your memos that will make them effective and successful toward their audience, and why?
Relevant Learning Outcomes from Class Syllabus
Craft effective business messages for specific audiences and purposes
Place professional communication within generic and cultural contexts
Assess business communication for quality of content and design
Demonstrate a clear, concise and appropriate writing style to summarize issues and support decision making by others
Possible Memo Tasks
(internal = from an organization member, to their colleagues)
(NOTE: These are just ideas, that should be built upon, not used without development)
Write a memo (or appropriate written document) to HR to report harassment and/or microaggressions in the workplace. Learning how to articulate and describe these incidents, how to recognize and act upon them, would be some of the goals for this type of document. Attention to audience, establishment of credibility, appropriate conventions of writing this kind of document would be delicate and important to focus on.
Write a persuasive letter to your workplace advocating that they do more to stand up for anti-racism and advocate for people of color. For example, consider the practice of displaying Black Lives Matter support signs in stores, or campaigns to support Black-Owned Businesses. Think carefully about your audience, corporate culture, plain language, and ethos/pathos/logos. The New York Times article “What Do I Do if My Employer Does Something I Can’t Abide shows the difficulties an employee faces in such situations. Other sources to consider for ideas include those that examine the gap between companies’ words and their actions regarding racism and anti-racism, for example, “Corporate Hypocrisy on Racism by Robert Reich.
To increase productivity: Your workplace has decided to address the use of social media and personal cell phone use during business meetings and work hours. While you are not proposing banning all personal communication, the productivity on a certain project has stalled. You need to address your colleagues and report the rising concerns, inspire more focused productivity at important meetings, and warn of possible measures in the future.
To join a committee: You need more people to join a task force to restructure the workflow. The problem is that your co-workers are already overwhelmed with their workplace procedures and the last call for committee work yielded no results. Draft an effective internal memo to the workplace that will garner a positive reaction from your audience.
Create your own scenario, audience, situation within a company or organization. Come up with a situation that would require you to address people within the workplace, addressing them professionally, bringing them awareness of an ongoing/important issue, or urging them to take a particular action. You may construct an audience and context for this: Perhaps you could write from the perspective of someone at the job you built Project 1 around.
Possible Memo Tasks
(external = from within an organization, to outside recipients)
To recruit guest speakers: You are in charge of a professional development day and need to recruit guest speakers from the local university to address your coworkers. The position will not be paid, but the department has demonstrated interest in working with your company in exchange for increased internship and recruitment opportunities for their students. This will be read widely by both your superiors/coworkers and will be distributed widely in the school. Expect the news to be received positively by your audience.
To inform of policy change: You need to inform existing clients of a policy change in communication. Your office has eliminated all administrative assistant positions and asks all clients to contact their representative directly. Create a form letter that could be sent to all clients explaining the reason/benefits of the change and how the new process should work. Expect backlash of negative feelings about the change from your audience.
Statements of Support: A document similar to one or more messages/statements that businesses issued in 2020 in response to BLM, police brutality, and anti-racism. Craft a statement of your own for a business within your chosen industry. This may require industry research. See the Business Insider article, “Companies like Netflix, McDonald’s, and Target are speaking out …” for a few ideas and background.
To reconnect: Write an email intended to be sent in bulk to a group of clients, in which you address the goals of the new quarter. This can be from any perspective of business (marketing, accounting, management, finance, etc.). The goal is to not only inform your clients of what to expect in the upcoming months but inspire further business or communication with them.
To update: Write a message to be posted on your company blog/public site, explaining the benefits of the blogging platform to replace inter-office memos and mass mailings to clients and customers. This will be the first blog post in your company blog, and you must assume that some readers will be unfamiliar and resistant to the change.
Create your own scenario, audience, situation directed from within a company or organization, toward an external person or persons. Consider a circumstance where a company might need to address a person, group, organization, community, etc., and how to write effectively to address that circumstance.
Part 3 (Self-Analysis, Cover Letter, or Reflection)
Address parts of the Rhetorical Situation in detail, such as the audience context considerations for each memo. Describe your process, too: How you arrived upon your idea and why, how you drafted and revised, who offered you feedback and guidance, and how the memos evolved from your initial idea.
Self-Analysis content should include:
How do your memos reflect your knowledge/assumptions about your audience? Their education, expertise, and values? What evidence is there for this in the memos’ text?
Where and how do you write with an outcome, or purpose, in mind? How do you emphasize your audience’s connection to that outcome? What’s the “so what?” Where and how are outcomes described in Specific, Realistic or other “SMART” terms?
Look through your work, and identify instances where you suggest outcome/course of action, emphasize the importance of the issue to your audience’s interests, or consider their education, expertise, and values. If these elements are unclear, or need to be incorporated, then try to revise to include them.
