Memo

Order Description

You work in the Customer Service Department at Greenlawn, a company that applies chemical fertilizers and pesticides to lawns. Recently Greenlawn received a letter from Gwen Smith, a customer with a five-year-old child and an infant. Ms. Smith is very concerned about the safety of the chemical you spray on her lawn; recently she read an article in the newspaper about a man who died suddenly after playing a round of golf on a course that had been treated by a similar company. The article stated that although commercial lawn treatments are generally safe, every year two or three people die because of an unusual vulnerability to the chemicals.

Your supervisor, Helen, drafted the following letter to Ms. Smith and asked you to review it. She asks, “Do you think this responds to Ms. Smith’s concerns?”

Analyze Helen’s letter presented below. Consider the following questions.

What is fundamentally wrong with the letter? What tech writing principle is most directly involved in this case?
How can the letter be improved? (Organize your memo so that your suggestions are easy to follow. Provide specific suggestions. Integrate direct quotations from Helen’s letter into your memo response. You may rewrite the entire letter for her and attach it to your memo if you like, but it’s not required that you do so.)
Did she choose the appropriate kinds of evidence?
Did she avoid logical fallacies?
Did she create an appropriate voice or persona?
Did she use appropriate language?

Write a memo (1-3 pages) to Helen recommending any revisions you think would improve it. (For help writing a memo, see pp. 385-87.) Remember that you are providing constructive criticism to your boss–your tone is important.

memo

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was founded in xxxx, for the purpose of providing xxxx. After a strong introductory sentence, you will continue providing the important background information and the current role of the commission in regulating securities and publically held companies. You memo should not exceed two pages.
You may want to include at times the use of bullet points. Be very careful you do not over use these. Perhaps two to four at the most, and they must be complete sentences. And, it is just fine to not use them, at times they help set off a key point or attribute you want to call attention to (see example below). Bullet points are used to support key paragraphs in a memorandum. They generally make is easy for the reader to see key facts that are “called out” with the bullets. Again, they are not necessary, but work well at times with complex issues.
•    The Securities and Exchange Commission has five Commissioners who are appointed by the President of the United States with the advice and consent of the Senate.
•    Their terms last five years and are staggered so that one Commissioner’s term ends on June 5 of each year.
•    To ensure that the Commission remains non-partisan, no more than three Commissioners may belong to the same political party.
•    The President also designates one of the Commissioners as Chairman, the SEC’s top executive.
You need to provide a closing which is not a “summary”, it is merely the transition to close out the memo to the person you are communicating with. You do not put a signature since you have placed your name on the header. Your closing needs to be well orchestrated so you do not leave the reader hanging. An example might be something like: I found learning about the SEC to be quite useful in my study of business and understanding the regulatory body and its role in the oversight of public companies in the US. Furthermore,

memo

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was founded in xxxx, for the purpose of providing xxxx. After a strong introductory sentence, you will continue providing the important background information and the current role of the commission in regulating securities and publically held companies. You memo should not exceed two pages.
You may want to include at times the use of bullet points. Be very careful you do not over use these. Perhaps two to four at the most, and they must be complete sentences. And, it is just fine to not use them, at times they help set off a key point or attribute you want to call attention to (see example below). Bullet points are used to support key paragraphs in a memorandum. They generally make is easy for the reader to see key facts that are “called out” with the bullets. Again, they are not necessary, but work well at times with complex issues.
•    The Securities and Exchange Commission has five Commissioners who are appointed by the President of the United States with the advice and consent of the Senate.
•    Their terms last five years and are staggered so that one Commissioner’s term ends on June 5 of each year.
•    To ensure that the Commission remains non-partisan, no more than three Commissioners may belong to the same political party.
•    The President also designates one of the Commissioners as Chairman, the SEC’s top executive.
You need to provide a closing which is not a “summary”, it is merely the transition to close out the memo to the person you are communicating with. You do not put a signature since you have placed your name on the header. Your closing needs to be well orchestrated so you do not leave the reader hanging. An example might be something like: I found learning about the SEC to be quite useful in my study of business and understanding the regulatory body and its role in the oversight of public companies in the US. Furthermore,