wr227 final_attachment summer 06

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General Guidelines for Letters & Memos

1. Know your Intention

2. Know your Audience

3. Apply Standard Formatting

4. Implement the ABC format

5. Utilize the CCC strategy for Persuasive Content

6. Emphasize the “You” Attitude

7. Place details in Attachments

8. Practice Diplomacy

SPECIFIC GUIDELINES FOR NEGATIVE LETTERS & MEMOS

ABC format for Negative Letters

Cardinal Rule: Deliver the bad news moderately yet clearly.

Abstract

1. Connect the memo to previous communication

2. Show appreciation in an effort to seek common bond & area of agreement

Body

1. Put heavy Emphasis on the solution.

2. Write what can’t be done with clarity & in moderation, providing valid reasons for negative news.

3. Provide facts that support your views

Conclusion

1. End with remarks expressing interest in continued association.

2. State what will happen next, if appropriate.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE IMPROVEMENT:

1. More important than just knowing your intention, you should make sure it is a good one. A good intention motivates, otherwise, your reader will be discouraged.

2. Be reminded that your reader works in the same company with you. Regardless of the subject of your memo, professionalism is expected & personal matters shall not reflect in your writing.

3. Be consistent in your formatting. Please follow the company formatting standard in dates, headers, indentation, etc.

The Company’s standard date format is “dd Month yyyy.” [e.g. 20 May 1985]

The Company’s standard for headers had been updated. It now looks like this:

SUBJECT: one-liner subject

FROM: sender’s last name, sender’s first name [sender’s title]

TO: receiver’s last name, receiver’s first name [receiver’s title]

Here’s an example:

SUBJECT: Project E0V3GC

FROM: Bautista, Jason [PU 101 Manager]

TO: Yu, Anthony [Technology Consultant Trainee]

Notice that “SUBJECT” replaced “Regarding.” The order & name/title had also been changed.

Make sure you use appropriate alignment & carefully choose words to underline. Your memo to Chris Jones, Human Resources Representative dated November 25, 199_ will benefit from this.

4. Part of the attachments is the ABC guideline specifically for negative letters. Take note of the cardinal rule; Deliver the bad news moderately yet clearly.

5. The CCC guideline is simple & effective:

Capture interest by telling your reader what the memo can do for him/her.

Convince your audience with supporting points that confirm your opener.

Control the closing with a statement that strengthens your relationship with the reader.

Your memo to Chris Jones utilized “convince” by enumerating strengths & weaknesses. And also, by indicating that you consider his guidance, you’ve “controlled” the closing & solidified your association with him. Although “capture” is not apparent in this memo, you’ve made it known that you know the CCC guideline. However, your memos to Peter need improvement with CCC.

6. Make your memo more of a reader-focused than a writer-focused. Here’s an example based on your own writing.

“You not only enjoy this type of work, you are also good at it.”

focuses more on the reader than

“It is my assessment that you not only enjoy this type of work, but that you are good at it.”

7. Keep your memos within a single page or two. I understand that we can’t escape cases in which elaboration requires us to exceed more the two pages. My suggestion would be to place the extra details in a separate attachment.

In light of your memo to Peter on 31 March 1993, consider the moral lesson BREVITY brings from this online content:

It's been said that to say something well you need to be concise. Just compare how well famous documents compare with a simple document from the US Government!

Pythagorean Theorem [arguably the most proven theorem in mathematics]: 24 words
The Lord's Prayer: 66 words
Archimedes' Principle: 67 words
The 10 Commandments: 179 words
The Gettysburg address: 286 words
The Declaration of Independence: 1,300 words
The US Government Regulations on the Sale of Cabbage: 26,911 words

8. Finally, choose words that will persuade & cajole, not demand. If you sound too authoritarian, your message may be ignored- even if it’s obvious that your suggestion will help your reader.

Other than these general suggestions, I would be delighted if you take extra care with the little things such as comma usage, spelling, spacing, word capitalization, fragment sentences, repeated & jumbled words, redundancy, and use of proper suffix for number sequencing especially for dates [e.g. 22^nd instead of 22th]. Just as the invention of the calculator does not make the fundamental knowledge of simple arithmetic obsolete, MS Word’s spelling & grammar checker does not make the basic knowledge of correct spelling & grammar old-fashioned. This is the very reason why our Hiring Office is required to test all BEB applicants for written communication skills prior to considering them for employment.

You have heard that positive thinkers view the glass “half-full” while the negative thinkers view it “half-empty”. Since optimists are known to believe that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, you sometimes don’t want to be considered as one. Allow me to share an alternative version of equivalent meaning, but with a different approach:

“The glass is twice as much as it needs to be.”

In other words, “it’s not that the worker’s ability is less than what the task requires; the task is probably too much for the worker’s capability.”

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