Memo Professional

Fact sheet topic
For the fact sheet, tell me much the same thing:
1. the topic about which you want to inform and/or persuade an audience (product,
service, event, organization, and so on) and your relationship to the topic. Fact
sheets are also written by someone or some organization, so if you happen, again,
to be interested in selling solar water heaters, then the fact sheet needs to be
produced by a solar appliance business. Tell me the business or organization that
the fact sheet will be sponsored by. (The fact sheet on coping with anger, for
example, was produced by the Counseling Center at USF.)
2. the audience for the fact sheet: be as specific as possible in terms of age, gender,
socioeconomic means, ethnicity, and so on. Nothing is written to a “general”
audience.
3. the persuasive purpose—if any—that you have with regard to the audience: fact
sheets are usually less focused on persuading an audience to do something
specific. However, all fact sheets at least encourage the audience to inquire
further about the topic.
4. the primary values, interests, and concerns of the audience with respect to the
topic: these are the aspects of the topic that your audience is most interested in.
Even if the topic for the fact sheet is the same as the topic for the sales letter, the
fact sheet will cover different material and more material than the letter (in part
because the fact sheet has more room). For example, a fact sheet on solar water
heating would explain how a solar water heater works, whereas a letter wouldn’t
have time to get into that subject. In general, let your audience’s interests guide
what you say about the topic.
(a.) economy;
(b) environment;
(c) reliability (a, b, and c are the same as sales letter);
(d) operation of solar water heaters (how they work);
(e) safety (in case of hurricanes, for example);
(f) installation;
(g) tax credits (d, e, f, and g are only in fact sheet);
5. the primary facts you’ll present about the topic, for example, about solar water
heating:
(a) savings vs. electric heaters, and how many years it will take for solar to “pay
for itself”;
(b) the amount of sun along Florida’s Suncoast and the little amount of electrical
backup needed;
(c) guarantees, estimated life of solar water systems;
(d) description of how solar water heating works on the Suncoast (where freezing
isn’t an issue);
(e) safety features of systems in hurricane-prone areas;
(f) description of installation procedures and appearance of the solar panel;
(g) description of any state or federal tax credits.
Again, 5a-g go with 4a-g: the facts you list in 5 represent the content of the sheet,
the information the sheet provides about the topic.
A good memo, again, will have two major sections with five parts each. Class members
who do a good job on this memo will do better than others on the sales letter and fact
sheet.
There is no complimentary close, signature, or typed name of writer at the end of a
memo: it just ends after its concluding paragraph.