The business writing style is an important aspect of communications among stakeholders of one company. It is predominately used by managers or people in the head of an organization to deliver various messages to their auxiliaries. The following paper is intended to analyze and critique an inappropriate example of a business memorandum.
Who is the Sender?
Although the memo given as an example for this paper does not contain the position of the sender, it is possible to guess it from what is said in the context. The author of this message seems to be in charge of budget means of some company (Flood, 2016). Therefore, this person might occupy the position of a finance department manager or director.
Who Is the Receiver?
As it is mentioned above, there is no personal information specified in the memo. However, the message is sent to employees of some company’s finance or accounting department. This fact becomes evident from the context of the message as it contains an imperative command.
What Is the Intent?
The intent described in the memorandum example obligates its receivers to send a confirmation regarding the outside limits of the company to the production department. The sending must include budget parameters the working team delineated during the meeting last week. Also, the author told his auxiliaries to do it as soon as possible and claimed it to be a priority.
How Might You Clarify This Memo?
The primary premise of the discussed memorandum is to make employees send the confirmation mentioned above to the production line of the company. The goal of this message is to deliver the required information on time to avoid misunderstandings and inconveniences in the future. The sender wants his colleagues to be responsible for this operation.
It Is Persuasive in Getting the Recipient to Act?
The context of the analyzed memorandum is not persuasive as it does not present possible adverse outcomes if the task is failed. However, if the recipient knows the character of the sender and considers him or her to be an authoritative person, the message might be persuasive. Nevertheless, an individual who happens to deal with such a text for the first time might not understand the importance of the action required by the manager or director.
It would be proper to state that it is advantageous to include a call to action, result, outcome, recommendation, judgment, or proposal in the context of the memorandum (Flood, 2016). This gives receivers the motivation to accomplish the task as quickly as possible. In general, it persuades readers to complete the mission.
Appropriate Interpretation
To: Receiver
From: Sender Name, Position
Date: Month Day, Year
Re: Memo Topic
The production department needs to receive the confirmation regarding the outside limits and budget parameters delineated during the meeting, which took place one week ago. If the task is not completed on time, various issues and discrepancies might occur in the work of the production department. To avoid unfortunate outcomes, the requirement must be met immediately.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Conclusion
Business writing style requirements must be met in memorandums that contain some requests. Otherwise, the context might not be perceived accurately by people who read it. According to the appropriate standards, senders should use an official language to address their colleagues. The memorandum analyzed above lacked persuasiveness due to the absence of possible unfortunate outcomes.
Reference
Flood, T. E. (2016). MBA fundamentals: Business writing (2nd ed.). Saint Louis, MO: Kaplan Publishing.