Memo #1 Results

This week I received feedback from my first memo assignment in my educational career. Although I was not pleased with the grade on the Memo, I realize it is the first memo I have ever written. All I can do is improve from this and learn more of the structure on how to write a memo. One piece of positive feedback I received was with the skim value of the memo. I did not receive much positive feedback, but at least build off of the overall appearance of my memo. To be honest I was in a way shocked by the feedback, because I thought my final product was better than the feedback proposed. I knew right away I needed to go get tutored because my skills are obviously very raw. When writing this memo I quickly realized how the style of a business memo is completely different than writing a normal four page paper for a political science class. From the heading to the overall structure, this professional style of writing is completely different. Not only is it shorter in length than your typical essay, but it includes formatting details such as bullet points and major headings. These formatting ideas are new to my style of writing, therefore, I need to practice to improve just like anything else.

Today, I had an appointment with one of the TA’s to go over my memo and what I needed to improve on to improve my grade. This meeting was beneficial because it gave me a better understanding of the correct structure that is required and allowed me to improve upon my original idea. I thought I would completely change the topic I was writing on, but the meeting assured me that my topic was acceptable by changing a few parts. My needs part of the memo was lacking the need element and instead I was proposing more of a solution than a need. I plan on re-writing my memo this weekend and scheduling another appointment to get feedback on my improvements. Overall, this memo assignment showed me that I have much improvement to be made in my professional writing style.