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Purdue OWL

7/14/14, 9:04 PM

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

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Contributors:Courtnay Perkins, Allen Brizee. Summary: This handout will help you solve your memo-writing problems by discussing what a memo is, describing the parts of memos, and providing examples and explanations that will make your memos more effective.

Audience and Purpose

Memos have a twofold purpose: they bring attention to problems and they solve problems. They accomplish their goals by informing the reader about new information like policy changes, price increases, or by persuading the reader to take an action, such as attend a meeting, or change a current production procedure. Regardless of the specific goal, memos are most effective when they connect the purpose of the writer with the interests and needs of the reader. Choose the audience of the memo wisely. Ensure that all of the people that the memo is addressed to need to read the memo. If it is an issue involving only one person, do not send the memo to the entire office. Also, be certain that material is not too sensitive to put in a memo; sometimes the best forms of communication are face-to-face interaction or a phone call. Memos are most effectively used when sent to a small to moderate number of people to communicate company or job objectives. Contributors:Courtnay Perkins, Allen Brizee. Summary: This handout will help you solve your memo-writing problems by discussing what a memo is, describing the parts of memos, and providing examples and explanations that will make your memos more effective.

Parts of a Memo

Standard memos are divided into segments to organize the information and to help achieve the writer's purpose.

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Heading Segment

The heading segment follows this general format: TO:...