Memorandum

To: Matthew Shen
From: Cody Gagnon
Date: July 21, 2020
Subject: Peer Review of Matthew Shen’s Memo to Evan Crisp

In your memo to Evan Crisp, you offer numerous helpful suggestions for writing emails to professors and you provide clear and concise reasons for each. Please consider the following suggestions to further improve your use of the you attitude.

Writing Style

Introduction

To write with the you attitude, you could increase use of the second-person pronoun, “you,” and decrease use of the first-person pronoun, “I.” The introduction twice uses “I” and does not use “you” at all.

Body

Using imperatives can give your reader the impression that you are issuing commands. To avoid offending your reader, you might consider avoiding imperatives. For example, the sentence, “Include a subject line,” is an imperative, because it orders the reader to take a particular action.

Conclusion

Although you use the second-person pronoun in your final sentence, you might consider applying the you attitude to the first sentence of your conclusion. For example, the first sentence of your conclusion could be rewritten as, “By applying these practices, you may improve your communication in school and in work.”

Grammar and Technical Errors

Introduction and Conclusion

• The introduction and conclusion of your memo are free of grammatical and technical errors.

Body

• In the first bullet point, the “s” at the end of “Subjects” is unnecessary.
• In the fourth bullet point, the comma after “concise” is unnecessary.
• In the fifth bullet point, the “s” in “tones” is unnecessary.
• According to Canadian spelling, “favour” is spelled with a letter “u.”

Revisions

To summarize, you may improve this document and other professional documents that you may write in the future by:

• Decreasing use of the first-person pronoun, “I.”
• Increasing use of the second-person pronoun, “you.”
• Decreasing use of imperatives.
• Correcting grammatical and technical errors.

I hope that you find this review of your memo to be helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments regarding the above suggestions.