A Professional Writing

Appendix A
Professional Writing

Writing business memos and reports

All solutions to memo problems should be written so as to ”stand alone.” That is, any reader should be able to pick up your solution and read it without knowing anything else about the problem (but might need to know something about the content). In other words, you must think objectively about your response to the memo. Ask yourself, ”What if I got this on my desk and knew nothing about the project? Would I understand the memo?” If the answer is no, then your response needs more information.

Writing is one of the most (if not THE MOST) important aspects of a career - any career, but especially one in business. Writing is a way of seeing, understanding, explaining, and envisioning the world around you. Managers with good communication skills will never be outsourced.

In this course, you will be preparing two types of responses to memos. The first type of response you will produce is an informal, routine type of memo (see the sample in Example 1 - problem at Gamma) . In a routine memo, you should:

Use an informative subject line that summarizes the purpose of the memo.
State the purpose of your memo in a direct manner in your introduction.
Organize the body of your memo for readability, using visual cues, bulleted lists, and tables.
Summarize your analysis, findings, or recommendations, as appropriate in your closing paragraph.
DO NOT include a closing (like ”Sincerely, John”)

The second type of response you will be preparing is really what would be called a Business Report. In this type of response, you should include the following sections:

The Executive Summary (1 - 2 paragraphs)
1. Introduction. Tell the reader what the problem is about. Briefly tell the reader what data has been collected. Explain what you want to determine or find out.
2. Preview. Then tell the reader what you are planning to do and give him/her an idea about how the analysis of the data will flow. Explain what the structure of the memo is.
3. Conclusions of the Analysis. Briefly describe the conclusions, if possible.
Analysis (the bulk of the report)
1. Steps to Reach the Conclusion. Explain what you did; explain all the steps and the reasoning that led to each step.
2. Supporting Evidence. Provide all the supporting evidence - graphs, tables, charts, etc. Labe leach item appropriately and refer to it by name in the text of the response. Organize the evidence and the explanation so the reader can follow the argument.
Conclusion (1 - 2 paragraphs)
1. Summary of results. Provide a summary of the results of the analysis, collected into a convenient form (like a table).
2. Context. Put your solution into context and explain what the results actually mean for the situation you are analyzing. Interpret the results so the reader does not have to guess.
3. Sensitivity. How accurate are your results? How much are they likely to change as a result of changes in the underlying data? Give the reader a sense of what the limits are to your analysis, so that he/she knows how much to rely on these results.
4. Advice. If the original assignment/memo called for a decision, be sure you provide a clearly stated response to that requirement, and clearly connect your evidence and process to the decision you are advocating.

Another helpful hint is to use headings in the memo to improve both the visual and logical organization. These may take many different visual formats (bold type, underlining, larger font, etc.) but should match with the structure provided in the introduction of the memo, so that an interested reader can easily locate the information he or she needs. This helps with your overall goal in writing a good memo: Make your thought process transparent for both your reader and yourself. After all, you may need to come back to this project in six months or a year; a good memo now will save you a lot of time later.

Elements Of An Effective Memo

√: Writing is competent (grammar, spelling and sentence structure are correct and clear)
√: Directed at the right person (your audience)
√: Fully addresses the problem
√: Margins are clean
√: Organized and focused so it can quickly be read and understood
√: Sufficient analytic detail to justify all conclusions
√: No charts or tables split across page breaks
√: Charts and tables are labeled and referred to by these labels in the text
√: Evidence (charts and tables) is embedded in the report, somewhat near the discussion about it (integration of text and graphics)
√: Charts and tables are all legible
√: Document sections are in order and not fragmented
√: Introduction provides an overview of the memo and its structure
√: Introduction reminds the reader (briefly) of what the problem context is and what you have been asked to do

Elements of an Exceptional Memo

√: Additional tables used to organize all conclusions and make comparisons easier
√: Features like bold text, shading, and headings used to highlight important information
√: Conclusion summarizes the analysis
√: Report includes an analysis of accuracy and possible errors

The 5W+H Strategy

√: Who writes? To whom?
√: What do they write about?
√: When should you write?
√: Where should you write?
√: Why should you write?

Email protocols for professional communication

You are probably used to sending and reading emails. You probably even have multiple email accounts to manage. Since all systems are slightly different, we want to talk about something more important to the general concept of sending emails, whether you are sending them to your course instructors, your family, your boss, or your friends.

Personal Information. It is critical that several things appear in any email message.

Your name. It may seem redundant; after all, the recipient has your email address. But consider this. Many usernames are not clearly connected to to your name. When someone receives an email from abC1434, they don’t usually have time to think about everyone they know that might have that as a username. They really don’t know who sent the message. If you aren’t willing to sign your actual name to the message, you should really think about whether it is a message you should be sending.
Your job title and address
Maybe even a phone number.

If your e-mail system allows signature files, it probably will let you create several different ones. You could have a signature file for professional communications and a separate one for personal communications, with different information in each.

Subject Line. Be sure that you put something meaningful in the subject line of your messages. With the thousands of junk email messages that most people receive each week, the subject line will often be the deciding factor in whether your email gets read or not. If your email is to a course instructor, for instance, your instructor will appreciate it if the subject line contains the course number (like MSTI 130) as the first part of the subject line. In the business world, many people will automatically delete messages with inappropriate subject lines or without a subject altogether, not to mention that many spam filters will automatically remove messages without subject lines before the intended recipient every gets an opportunity to examine them.

Be Professional. Make sure that you do a little proofreading in your emails. They may be short, but don’t be sloppy. Grammar, punctuation, and spelling are all important in emails. Very often, this may be your only chance to make a first impression, so make it good.

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