This is week 12 of the semester. It is also a short week because there was no class on Tuesday.
Today’s Notes
- Review some key points from the business memo writing assignment.
- Feedback on other assignments.
- Next week, email writing lesson.
- Next week – Friday, you have quiz #2.
Business Memo Feedback
This writing exercise was, in part, learning how to describe very specific changes in the amount of something over time.
These changes could be comparisons between two things (for example, apple and tangerine consumption) and changes over time (for example what happened between to apple consumption between two years).
Here are some examples.
Write a Control Sentence to Start a Paragraph
- The total consumption of fruits in 2001 more than doubled compared to the total consumption 1980.
Not bad. Let’s make some small changes to make it less wordy.
- Total consumption of fruit in 2001 more than doubled compared to 1980.
Paragraph Structure
Generally, each paragraph about the data starts with a sentence that describes the general trend for that food (i.e. fruit, or vegetable or meat). That’s the first sentence. Then the other sentences give specific details about specific kinds of food.
- Start with a general description then specific.
Need to be Clear – Missing Words
- Beef and poultry doubled.
Can a beef double? No. There is a word missing. The beef did not double. Consumption increased.
- Beef and poultry consumption doubled.
Say a Lot in a Few Sentences
- Although garlic and onion consumption is 5-7 times bigger than 1970, they consumed only 7-14 kg. But Others consumption is not only 5 times bigger than 1970 but also the biggest rate in total.
Here is a very good example of how to say a lot things in a few sentences. Excellent comparison of consumption for different kinds of food over different time periods. Let’s correct a few small things to make it clearer.
- Although garlic and onion consumption was 5-7 times more in 2000 compared to 1970, these foods were a small part of total vegetable consumption, about 21 kg or 13% of the total. “Others” consumption in 2000 was not only 5 times bigger compared to 1970 but also the biggest single category of vegetable consumption, almost 50% of the 2000 total.
Describing Change – KISS
When describing the growth rate in consumption, keep it simple (KISS principle).
- Seafood has increased more than about 11 times.
Let’s simplify and be more clear.
- Seafood consumption increased about 11 times between 1969 and 1998.
Format
It’s the first draft so some people did not use the memo format. When you rewrite please use the memo format. That includes a short introduction to explain the purpose of the memo – maybe one or two objectives – and data sources.