CSS301 TECHNICAL WRITING FOR COMPUTING PROFESSIONALS

LECTURE NOTES ON MEMOS

Table of Contents
Memos as Delivery ........................................................................................................................ 1
Memo Form ................................................................................................................................... 1
Memo Authentication ................................................................................................................... 3
Memos as a Delivery Mechanism ................................................................................................ 4
Memo Uses ..................................................................................................................................... 4
Memos Versus Email .................................................................................................................... 4

MEMOS AS DELIVERY
A memo is a form of delivering information. Memos are used to deliver information inside a
corporation/organization. (Note: By contrast, letters are used to deliver information outside an
organization, although they can be used for inside an organization as well.)
Any information can be delivered in a memo. Their use, frequency, and type of information are
determined by the workplace; some workplaces may use them heavily and others not at all.
While memos are used less today with the use of email, they are still useful.

MEMO FORM
The front matter form of a memo is shown in Figure 1, and each element is explained afterwards.
(Front matter refers to standard information that is always the same in the front of a form.)

Figure 1: Front matter of a memo

MEMO
To: Primary audience
CC: Secondary audiences
From: Your name followed by your initials written by hand
Date: Date
Subject: Precise indicator of content
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: The front matter of a memo is always the same, and the order of each element is
important for the reader/audience. Because of the use of the tab after the key words, readers look
down the column of text of unique information, scanning primary audience, secondary audience,
your name, date, and subject. They do not read the lines across: "To: names, CC: names, From:
your name, Date:, Subject:". Therefore, if the front matter information has been placed in a
different order, then the reader would be confused as they scanned for what is important to them.
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 CSS301 TECHNICAL WRITING FOR COMPUTING PROFESSIONALS

MEMO: The word Memo or Memorandum needs to be at the top of a memo as a signal to the
reader.

To: The primary audience can be a list of comma-delimited individual names, or it could be the
name of an internal group (e.g., CSS 301 Students for x Section, in yyy qtr, in zzzz yr)

CC: The carbon copy (CC) list is for those readers/audiences that also need the information, but
who do not need the information directly for their job.

NOTE: Be careful not to put someone in the CC list that you expect to act on the
information provided. Many readers who see themselves as a CC will wait to read it or
maybe even store the information away, and not read it until they need to.

Carbon copy comes from the days of typewriters. To create carbons, the author would
position multiple pieces of paper together in the typewriter with carbon pages in between
each page. Those that got the carbons knew because of the type print quality. However, the
only way the original receiver of a letter/memo knew if someone else got a copy was with
the CC line.

From: Your first name and last name, followed by your authentication, written by hand. See the
section "Memo Authentication."

Date: The date is usually of the form month date, year. If you use mm/dd/yy, then be sure that
your audiences are all Americans, because that form is not the same in other countries.

Date form and Tone (See Defining a few terms):

month date, year is a formal form of the date
mm/dd/yy is an informal form of the date.

Subject: Each pattern gives you cues that identify itself. Learn to use the cues of the patterns to
clearly identify what the subject of the memo is. Vague subject lines mean that the reader
must read the memo in full to know what it is about. If the reader had to read the whole
memo to understand what it was about, what usefulness was the subject line?

TABS: NOTE each element, To, CC, From, Date, Subject, has a tab after the colon. This creates
an alignment so that the reader need only read down the column of unique information.

Colon: The colon after the words To, CC, From, Date, and Subject occurs immediately after the
word, not after the tab.

LINE spacing: Line spacing or white space is required after the front matter and before the
beginning of the information in the memo.
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MEMO AUTHENTICATION
In today's culture of hacking, virus, worms, etc., verifying the identity of the sender of
information is vitally important. How do you know that the memo you received was indeed
created by the person's name that appears on the From: line? Answer: Authentication!
Authentication is when you can verify that you are who you say you are. For example, showing
your driver's license when asked for it at the bank or your Husky ID card at the UW library, or
by logging in using your username/password a combination that only you know.
The idea of authentication is to know that the person whose name is in the FROM field actually
generated the memo. How to do that lies in how the memo got into the reader's hands.
If the author emailed the memo file to someone, then the reader knows that the author
had to log in to email it the login created an authentication.
If the author prints the memo and gives the reader the memo as a piece of paper, then the
reader would need to know that the author really created it. Thus another form of
authentication is necessary. This is where the hand written initials are used by the typed
author's name.
If the reader takes the memo piece of paper and copies it or gives it to someone else, the
new reader would need to know it was authenticated. This is why the initials on that
original page by the author provide that authentication.
If the author emails a memo and then the reader takes the memo file out of the email and
prints it or uses it in some other way, that memo file is no longer authenticated. It's just a
file with someone's name in the "From:" field. If the author expects their memo will be
detached from the email that delivered it, then they need to initial the memo, scan it, then
attach the scanned file, to preserve the authentication.
Thus these are the rules for authenticating a memo:
If the memo is delivered on paper, then before copying the memo, the author places their
initials 1 by hand beside their typed name in the front matter of the memo.

If the memo is delivered by email, then the email authentication process ought to be
sufficient. Thus it's not needed to also authenticate with initials.

In select cases, authentication may require both steps. If the memo is going to be received
by the audience, and then forwarded on to another party, both steps are required to
establish authentication to the forwarded party. To do this, you would print the memo,
initial it by hand, scan it in, and email the scanned file to the audience.
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1
Initials refer to the first initial of each of your names in their order written with a cursive script. Your signature,
seen on letters, refers to your full name in cursive script.
 CSS301 TECHNICAL WRITING FOR COMPUTING PROFESSIONALS

MEMOS AS A DELIVERY MECHANISM

When delivering information in a memo, the information follows the front matter.
In CSS 301, information is organized into patterns. So the pattern that you're using to organize
the information would follow the line after the memo front matter.

MEMO USES
Memos are used in corporations/organizations in some of these forms:
As a written record of a meeting (also known as, meeting minutes):
Written after a meeting concluded, usually organized along the lines of Progress,
Decisions, Outstanding Items, and Next Steps. The minutes would be stored in a
global/cloud directory for everyone that needs that information and those that attended
the meeting to read again to refresh their memory. Access to that directory to deposit the
memo would be considered authentication.

As acknowledgement of work completed:

Sometimes it's customary to acknowledge when someone did something so that their
participation can be recognized. A memo is a common form for this type of
acknowledgement.

A semi-formal announcement:
If a company is making an announcement which it wants to be delivered in a more formal
tone than email, it might write it as a memo. (Memos can deliver a more formal tone than
an email because they usually have a corporate logo attached and other signposts not
available in email.) The memo might be delivered on paper, posted on bulletin boards
throughout the company, or emailed as an attachment in an email message. NOTE: Have
you ever noticed the "BS Times" in the bathrooms around campus? These are a form of
memo where the front matter is implied and authentication is performed by its distinctive
look and the ability to post it. NOTE: Postings around campus are monitored;
unauthorized postings are taken down.

MEMOS VERSUS EMAIL

You'll have noticed that the memo front matter very closely resembles the email format; in fact,
email applications were designed with the intention to resemble memos that they were replacing.
However, in practice, emails act more like letters. For example, letters or emails include a
salutation (e.g., "Thank you" followed by your name) at the end, unlike memos. Thus, we'll
discuss email in more detail after we've examined letters.
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