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Memo Assignment
MEMO ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES FALL 2017 INITIAL STEP: Students may choose any topic from the list below or covered in class. NO TOPIC CAN BE CHOSEN BY MORE THAN ONE STUDENT. If there is a topic that is maternal and child health-related, but not covered in this course or on the list, contact your instructor for permission to use the topic for your paper. Some of these recommended topics are very general. Students should narrow down their topic as much as possible. Focusing on a narrower topic will enable you to write a better paper, and, therefore, get a better grade. For example, if you are interested in postpartum depression, you can focus on the causes or risk factors of postpartum depression, the effects of postpartum depression on infants and children, postpartum depression among minority groups, or the treatment of postpartum depression.
My Topic is…..School violence (non-bullying)
In this final assignment, students will write a 3-4 page memo to an individual who has a decision-making role in the field of Maternal and Child Health. Students will identify the appropriate person as the audience for the memo, depending on the nature of the topic selected. Students do not need to address the entire issue selected, but identify a specific activity that is under the control of the recipient of your memo.
The student must answer the following questions in his/her memo: 1) What is the problem? Define and explain its significance as a public health problem. 2) How big is the problem (e.g., magnitude, overall trends, statistics)? 3) Who does it affect the most, and why? 4) Why is this problem important to MCH? 5) What policy change and/or program intervention do you propose to address this problem, and why? 6) What specifically do you want the person reading the memo to do? Why should this person/group care and why is this topic important to this individual or group of people? Make your objectives and intended outcomes clear. The concise answers to these questions will help the student make a persuasive argument within the memo, to move his/her specified decision maker to action. This argument must be research-based; students should review the research literature (using at least 3 scholarly journal articles and his/her choice of other sources, such as the CDC website). The information learned from those research studies and publications should be used to inform and support the student’s argument and thoughts.
You must use at least 3 articles that are from peer-reviewed scholarly journals (articles must be published in 2001 or later). Use databases such as PUBMED, OVID, CINAHL, Google Scholar, or other databases in the social sciences to find appropriate articles. It is strongly recommended that students take the following short tutorial from the HSC Library, for details on how to conduct a literature review and seek peer-reviewed scholarly publications using these databases:
Memo Assignment
Assignment 6: Memo Writing
Write a decent inter-office memo. The memo should be of moderate length (somewhere between 250-500 words), and the topic should be relevant to your program of study. Don’t panic if you can’t think of a decent topic, as I’ve included some topic ideas for everyone at the end of this assignment description.
Requirements for this assignment.
Length should be 250-500 words, give or take.
Follow the structural recommendations I set forth in the lecture series. Your memo should have four sections: Heading, Purpose, Discussion and Action. Do not deviate from this requirement. Each of these sections should meet the objectives which were set forth in the lectures.
Be sure the memo carries the proper sense of tone.
Watch for grammatical, spelling and syntactical errors. This is a cumulative course, and the syntactical issues which we looked at in the email section of the course hold for this section as well (and, in fact, will apply to all future sections as well, since those syntactical considerations are not email-specific. They apply to all forms of professional writing).
Keep the jargon to a minimum. You don’t have to completely ‘dumb down’ your memo so that every employee in the firm could understand it, but it should be a document that someone with only a basic understanding of the subject could understand.
Topic ideas:
Technology Management Majors:
You were recently part of a corporate meeting in which the subject of ISO 9000 certification was raised. The firm is giving some thought to trying to meet ISO 9000 standards. Write a memo in which you give your opinion on ISO 9000 certification, and specifically address the issue of whether or not you think the firm should try to achieve it.
- You work for a firm that is considering hiring a third party logistics firm to help
with supply chain management. Explain your position on third party logistics, and explain why you think the firm should (or should not) look into hiring such a firm.
Information Assurance Majors:
The firm for which you work is considering applying for ISO/IEC 27002 certification, and the president has asked you to write a memo explaining your position on this subject (i.e., whether or not you think the firm should try to meet these standards). Write a memo in which you express your opinion on ISO/IEC 27002, and whether or not you think it’s something the firm should explore further.
Your firm is thinking about changing its firewall architecture. Write a memo in which you explain what particular firewall architecture would be best for your firm. This will, among other things, require you to explain why you choose the firewall that you chose.
Network and Information Security Majors:
Your employer has asked you to write a memo on a few steps the firm can take to guard Windows PC’s against hackers. Include a discussion of two or three steps the firm can take that can be easily implemented and have been thus far overlooked (or otherwise neglected) by the current staff.
Write a memo explaining the dangers that your firm will be exposed to if it continues to use Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express as its email client. Be sure to recommend an alternative client in the ‘Action’ section of your memo.
Other Majors:
- Your boss at your current place of work (or most recent place of work) has asked you to write a memo on a few steps that your company employees can follow to improve employee morale.
- Write a memo explaining the importance of employee morale, and how improving employee morale is beneficial to not only the business but also to the employee and the customers.
Remember, you don’t have to use any of these ideas. They are just suggestions in case you find yourself ‘stuck’. If you have some other subject which you would like to write on then by all means do so! Just be sure the topic would be appropriate for a memo.