To: CSU Northridge students
From: Prof. Jeff Wiegley
Subject:Memorandum Format Specifications
Date: 09/27/04
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One of the purposes of a Computer Science degree is to prepare students to handle a wide variety of complex issues that arise in industry in a professional manner. As a member of industry responsible for the success of applications, systems, networks and other projects it will be your duty to report to supervisors and managers about the details and nature of your performance and requirements.

You should take great care to accurately and concisely document your needs, actions and performance. Not only for the purpose of informing others about your needs and requirements but also for the purpose of securing the limits and levels of your responsibilities, authority and accountability (three key components for success on projects). Failure to obtain the necessary approvals and signatures often ends up placing blame or additional work on you for decisions and mistakes made by others. Failure to properly notify others about your needs in a timely fashion often results in a failure of your projects.

Reports and requests should be informative, concise, accurate and professional. Do not waste time with flowery wording or long winded introductions. Your supervisors will not want to waste time reading it and it wastes your own time writing it. Like a legal contract, often the less you say the better (as long as you do not omit important or relevant information).

A good template for presenting such information in a professional manner is the traditional ”memorandum” format. If you are a student in a course instructed by Professor Wiegley you may be required to submit course assignments using a memorandum format. Such documents are to be prepared using a traditional, simplified memorandum format. This document itself is presented to you in the appropriate format.

Criteria for the memorandum format consists of:

When writing reports, and requests, your document should be concise and to the point. It should clearly address issues such as:

The list of topics presented here is not intended to be complete, necessary or sufficient in all cases but rather an example of the types of information that is relevant and needs to be addressed to obtain success.