Document Development Exposition: Workplace Correspondence

Explain in detail your document’s development from planning to finish, describing your
challenges, how you overcame them, and what you learned.

Planning
I decided to reuse my topic from the Formal report assignment for this memo as research
took the bulk of my time for the Formal report, so I did not want to go through that again.
Because the memo was formatted like a business report, I decided to write from the
perspective of an energy company instead of a government representative like in my Formal
report. This meant that I still needed to do some research though as my focus would be on
the benefits to the customer and company. For the outline I followed what was expected of
a recommendation memo and I decided not to do a H2 I wanted to be somewhat brief.

First Draft (for peer editing)

While writing the first draft I made sure to sound professional by omitting tones that
sounded like I was emotional invested in the subject. Also, in the memo I did not know if it
was appropriate to put references and citations since this was not an essay, but I left it in
just to be safe. The draft was mostly just putting my thoughts done on the paper to get an
idea of what I wanted to say which I plan to refine in my second draft. This was something I
learned from my previous assignment where I spent a long time writing as I was doing a lot
of planning in my mind as I wrote. I found it much quicker and easier to get unload ideas
stuck in my mind and then use the free space to build up on those ideas.

Second Draft (for your packet)

For the second draft I went back to the paragraphs I wrote and refined them. This included
elaborating some part such as the context sections and recommendations. For example, in
the recommendations I stated forms of alternative energy that could be invested in, but I did
not explain why and how it should be implemented. I then added info about Alaska’s unused
land and where each type of clean energy should be built at. I also added an image in my
“Alaska’s energy profile sections” to give the audience a visual to what I was writing about.
The hardest part of the email would be the formatting of the ending block as I wasn’t
familiar with representing a professional company so I tried it to the best of my knowledge
by adding signatures and title position.

Final Draft (for your portfolio)

The feedback I got on the memo noted the same mistake I had with header spacing in the
Formal paper, so I get the idea by now. As I expected my email needed the most changes,
specifically the closing block which I mentioned I had a vague idea on how to do. After
looking at a recommended website I saw I was missing a lot such as the address, number,
and email which is needed for contacting me back which I should’ve noticed the first time
since the email is requesting a response to a proposal. I think this revision was the most
helpful personally as I rarely get exposed to this type of business writing at school. It is also
what I wanted to learn the most about when I took this course.
Document Development Exposition: Workplace Correspondence