Weaving a Web of Your OwnWriting Professionally in the Information Age

By Cameron Irby

Part 3:Memos and Other Molehills

© Pdiaz | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Let’s assume for a moment you decided not to pursue a career in Professional Writing. There are still plenty of aspects of the workplace that one needs a good thesaurus from time to time!

© Curtis Perry, Flickr

The first and most popular is the almighty memorandum (memo for short). This document can range from needing a single page to rivaling some research papers, so it is best to be familiar with the format.

© Flickr

Because research is important, where you do your research is vital. Here are two key rules.

Rule #1: Don’t use Wikipedia.Rule #2: Don’t use Wikipedia.

© Wikipedia

Memos aren’t the only thing you need to prepare for. Agendas are handy little schedules to give you a nice overview of a meeting. How do you make one? Just look up this guide from Effective Meetings!

©Flickr

Need to contact someone in a business manner? Try sending a professional letter! Here’s an example to get you started. Just don’t tack on a P.S. or anything.

© Nirmala Ratna, Flickr

Many companies prefer to use the APA style of writing, although there are others who use the MLA style. Since you need to be able to know which to use, here is a handy little chart you can pull up from Appalachian State University.

MLAAPA vs

You’ve got your sources, but do you know how to cite them? Citation Machine can organize your sources in MLA, APA, or any other format you need. Just plug in the info, and watch it work!

© Citation Machine

One last thing to remember is that you must not plagiarize. Duke University has a video to help you avoid it, but you are the one who has to be careful.

© Flickr