What are Memorandums?
Memorandums are informative documents commonly used in the business world, and hence frequently assigned in all types of business classes. In business, memos are used internally for quick distribution of information between executives and colleagues. Memorandums are often written for the purpose of announcing a decision to either a single person or a group of people, such as decisions involving investment or divestment, hiring or firing of employees, increases in product prices, or pending mergers. Other memos have the purpose of solving a problem, such as providing information as to why a company has seen decreasing sales in recent reporting periods. An effectively written memo will eliminate the need to call a business meeting.
Memorandums are written with the assumption that the readers are busy with their regular work, and thus they are short and sweet. There need not be any excess information, as time is of the essence and no one has time to read pages upon pages. A useful strategy for writing memos is to provide clear subject headings to divide paragraphs. This increases the memo’s skim-ability and the likelihood the reader will understand what you are trying to convey.
Getting Started
Once given a memorandum assignment, it is important to understand the topic you will be writing about. It is equally important to understand what the professor is looking for. Professors will be very strict with the format and structure of your memo, so pay close attention to the directions given in class and the syllabus; go over them twice before beginning to write. Once these requirements are drilled into your mind, there are a few steps you can take in getting prepared to write.
- Knowing the topic: When writing a memorandum it is important to understand the topic and the goal of your memo. It is vital to do the research in order to develop the most accurate document possible: you should be 100% sure of what you want to say. You don’t want to give your boss or colleagues inaccurate information. Furthermore, consider what must be included in order to complete the task.
- Keep format in mind: Before writing decide how you want to express your information. Immediately after the purpose statement/introduction will come vital information to cement your message. In order to insure your document’s understandability, it will be important to decide how your thoughts will be represented. For example, do you want to write your proposed statements in lists or in paragraph form? Check with you professor about their own expectations before making decisions like these.
- Final message: What will you leave the reader with at the end of your memo? Before beginning to write a memo it is important to know the message you want to leave with the reader. Providing a purpose statement is the first step, but what makes that purpose important? For example, when writing to employees that the company will be merging, those employees will want to know what happens next. What does the merger mean for them? So before writing, make sure you know what you truly want the reader to learn besides the basic fact that “company A will be merging with company B,” and what you want your memo to accomplish.
Purpose Statement
Writing the purpose statement is one of the most important portions to nail when preparing a memo. A strong purpose statement will grab the readers’ attention and propel them to read further. This statement can be as simple as saying, “the purpose of this memo is….”
Composing
- Open with a formal header such as:
- TO: (Reader’s names & titles)
- FROM: (Your job & title)
- DATE: (Current date)
- SUBJECT: (What the memo is about)
- Introduction: Present the basic facts and include a strong purpose statement.
- Detailed Explanation:
- Expand on facts given in introduction
- Present any numbers as support
- Focus on providing information that will lead to a solution
- Discussion
- Analyze the facts presented. Give some of the implications of what has occurred.
- Recommend actions to the reader, but also explain why those recommendations are needed and will be beneficial.
- Consider: can the reader solve the problem or follow the recommendations presented in the memo? If so, your job has been done.
- Conclusion
- Summarize analysis and recommendations
- Include a closing remark that clearly states the recommended course of action