PERSUASIVE MEMORANDUM

PERSUASIVE MEMO

“…technical communicators, as workers and as citizens, must act in the real world. Presented with inaccurate and incomplete information, assessing unclear and inadequate options, torn between competing claims and goals, they must make decisions.”

-Mike Markel

Compose a one page memo responding to Denise Rivera’s suggested revisions to a project proposal being prepared for a potential client. Incorporate and cite credible research supporting claims made regarding ethics and/or legality (at least one source is required.)

What is a Memo?

A memorandum is used to communicate moderately formal correspondence internally within an organization, either to a single member, specific groups, or the whole organization. A memo should normally cover a single topic, and often is filed as a record. See chapter 9 from Practical Strategies for more guidance about this genre.

Project Timeframe?

The Scenario? (Draws from scenarios presented in Mike Markel’s Ethics in Technical Communication: A Critique and Synthesis, and Lori Allen and Dan Voss’s Ethics in Technical Communication: Shades of Gray)

Huemul Mining, a Chilean mining corporation with billions of dollars in revenue, has issued a request for proposals (RFP) for constructing an intranet that will link its headquarters with its three facilities in the United States and Europe. Rivera Informatics, a small networking consulting firm in Miami, is drafting a proposal. If hired, most of Rivera Informatics’ work will be performed at the Huemul headquarters in Las Condes, Chile, where the support and clerical staff are all women and the professional, managerial, and executive staff are all male.

You are the technical writer for Rivera Informatics, a small Information technology firm of 12 employees established two years ago by Denise Rivera, a 29-year-old computer scientist with a master’s degree in computer engineering. She is working on her MBA while getting her company off the ground. Her employees include both males and females at all levels. The chief financial officer and several of the professional staff are female.

You and Denise attend a briefing by Huemul in Miami, looking to gather the information you need for composing a proposal. When you arrive, you find that all the representatives from Huemul are middle-aged Chilean men. Denise is also the only female among the representatives of the other six IT companies that attend the briefing. When Denise shakes hands with Mr. Soto, the Huemul team leader, he smiles and nods as he did when greeting the other vendors.

Still, during the break, Mr. Soto and his team spend more time speaking with the men from the other six vendors, sometimes leaving you and Denise to stand awkwardly by yourselves. When alone, Denise says that she suspects the Huemul representatives feel uncomfortable in her presence.

On your drive back to the office, Denise discusses the possibility of gender discrimination by Huemel, but decides to bid on the project because she believes your company could write a persuasive proposal. Rivera Informatics had done several projects of this type successfully in the last year. Though Huemul would be, by far, the most lucrative contract yet.

You compose the proposal and send the first draft to Denise for her feedback. She sends the proposal back to you with these comments hand-written in the margins beside the related information:

• “Everyone’s going to be proposing a six month estimate on this project. Let’s make ours five months to stand out. If we can’t get it done in five, we’ll just explain the delay then.”
• “I like the details about our strategies to eliminate security breaches to the intranet. But you literally state here that ‘any system can be compromised’. Let’s get rid of that.”
• “This boilerplate about the firm has information about me founding the company and being president. And many of the included resumes of the project team make pretty clear they are women. I’m wondering if Huemul may not like the idea of women in positions of power over the project? Can you revise the boilerplate to remove information about me? Also, I think we should change the names on the resumes to only initials.”
• “I like the idea of using Linda Weinstein as principal investigator on the team, but I’m wondering if Huemul might be uncomfortable with a woman as lead researcher. Maybe you can change Linda’s name to include only initials too. Though maybe we’d be better off bringing in a male principal investigator on the project to be safe…what do you think?”

At the bottom of the final page of the draft, Denise writes: “Please let me know your thoughts on these changes, and remember my rules!”

Yes, Denise’s “Don’t” rules. Which one’s apply now? Let’s see…

• Don’t assume I already know what you are talking about
• Don’t agree or disagree with me without a full explanation
• Don’t withhold a better idea
• Don’t be vague
• Don’t be timid
• Don’t give me anything to read longer than one page

You take a deep breath and resolve that careful consideration is needed, followed by a memo to Denise in response.

My Purpose?

Your memo should persuade Denise Rivera against or for her suggestions, and/or alternative solutions. Evidence for your reasoning could draw on:

• Accepted codes of conduct in the IT industry (SANS IT Code of Ethics) or in professional and technical communication (STC Ethical Principles).
• Past cases and their consequences.
• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or other legal research.
• Other appropriate persuasive research, ethical philosophy, and/or reasoning.

How Will I be Graded?

Sources:

Allen, L., & Voss, D. (1997). Ethics in Technical Communication: Shades of Gray. New York: John Wiley & Sons

Markel, M., “Ethics and technical communication: a case for foundational approaches,” in Professional Communication, IEEE Transactions on, vol.40, no.4, pp.284-298, Dec 1997

Markel, M. H. (2001). Ethics in technical communication: A critique and synthesis. Stamford, CT: Ablex Pub