Download Employment Opportunities Memo

Employment Opportunities in your Career Field
Examine the classified advertising section of the Sunday Indianapolis Star as well
as Internet job sites such as monster.com/ hotjobs.com, or
http://indystar.gannettonline.com/careerbuilder/index.html. Try to determine
employment opportunities for people in the career field you plan to enter upon
graduation. Look for openings at the entry level unless a higher level would be
appropriate in your situation. Examine advertisements carefully. Some do not
have descriptive titles, yet offer employment opportunities in your field.
Determine from the advertisements answers to these questions:
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Which qualifications are most often listed?
What is the average salary?
How are you asked to apply?
Do advertisements indicate opportunities for promotion?
Is travel or relocation necessary?
Present the answer to these questions, plus others that you believe to be
important, in a short report directed to students interested in career opportunities
in your major field. Use charts or tables if they would be appropriate to present
some of your findings in the most readable style. Write the report in third person
(don=t use Ayou.@)
Evaluating the Writing Situation
Before writers can turn out a good document, they must consider what the
document is about. This means evaluating certain standard features of the
writing situation: the purpose, the audience, the type of document. It also means
considering the specific condition under which the document is being written:
the larger organizational context, whether it is being written by a group, time
constraints, and so on.
After reviewing the guidelines for the assignment above, answer the following
questions to evaluate the writing situation. Use memo format, and direct it to me.
1. What is your purpose?
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Are you writing to inform? To help readers make a decision? To help
readers learn how to do something? To persuade readers to do
something? Other?
If the purpose of a document is not clear, the choices a writer makes will also not
be clear. Because audience and purpose typically determine both the content and
the presentation of a workplace document, it is important to determine its
purpose as soon as possible.
2. Who is your audience?
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What are the audience=s needs and wants?
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What is their purpose in reading?
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How much do they already know?
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How receptive will they be?
More has been written recently about audience than about any other aspect of
writing. The reason for this is obvious: even if all your sentences are clear, all
your paragraphs unified and well organized, your language precise, and your
words spelled correctly, determining and evaluating the audience for a specific
piece of writing is a crucial step of the writing process. Your document is a
failure if it doesn=t communicate effectively with your specific audience. Many
features of a final document, such as format, amount of detail, and tone, will be
determined by the audience.
3. What do you need to find out?
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What different types of data are needed to write the document
effectively?
4. What are the available resources?
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Other than your own knowledge, what can help you write this
document? Online resources? Library? Experts? Other?
5. What are the time constraints?
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How will you manage to complete this assignment by the due date?
The most common constraint on writing tasks is the deadline. Schedule each part
of your writing process to allow sufficient time for gathering information, drafting,
revising, and editing.
Other questions will arise as you actually begin drafting the document, such as
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What are the most important facts to include?
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What level of detail is appropriate?
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What is the best way to arrange the information?
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What kind of graphics, if any, you should include?
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What is the best design for the document?