To: Shujun Peng
From: Annie Maurer
Thank you for submitting the memorandum to Evan Crisp demonstrating writing with the You-Attitude. It was an enjoyable read. Please see the review of the memorandum below.
Use of You-Attitude
The memorandum contained many excellent recommendations for Evan Crisp. An overarching theme in the memorandum was to use a polite tone when communicating via email with a professor. Having a tone tailored to the reader is a good way to show appreciation to the reader and to gain their support. The memo did a good job of recommending Evan to shift the focus of the email to the reader, the professor. As well, the memo itself was written to Evan in a way that exemplified the You-Attitude. The You-Attitude principle of avoiding the pronoun “you” in the body of the memo was followed excellently.
Recommendations
There is one instance in the body of the memo where an imperative verb was used. Modifying this sentence to remove the imperative would align the memo more closely with You-Attitude principles. Specifically, the word “end” was used as an imperative. A suggested improvement is to modify he sentence “[w]hen a request has been made, end the email in a polite manner” to something similar to “[e]nding the email in a polite manner when a request has been made can improve outcomes”.
Concluding Comments
The memorandum was well written and utilized the essential rules for writing with You-Attitude. If you have any questions regarding this feedback, please feel free to email me at maurera@students.ubc.ca.
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