Word analysis
In as much as the writer has noted prescreening of job candidates as the best recommendation for preventing workplace violence, the document has some flaws that make it difficult to understand. First, the language of the document is quite disconnected, and this is in the way he has constructed sentences. For instance, there are many incomplete sentences such as the first sentence of the document “I went to officePro conference on May”, which appears to be an incomplete sentence totally disconnected from the proceeding sentence. The sentence “The topic was how to prevent…” is extremely casual and does not fit a document that informs on such a crucial issue. The writer has also mixed tenses making it difficult for the reader to go an extra mile in trying to connect the pieces and get the information. Therefore, the awareness of the audience is minimal and this is because of the bad use of language and the organization of the document.
The organization of the document is not appealing at all, and this is because memos have to be brief and short but the writer is simply telling a story of what took place in the meeting other than offering the main points. This is not characteristic of a professional format where the audience has to know the subject, the main points and the conclusion, which should be extremely clear from the document’s format. Even though the writer has used paragraphs, he is not straight to the point, but instead offers some out of topic information that are not recommendable when writing a professional document, a memo for that matter.
Additionally, the document does not successfully make the audience aware of the meetings significance, and this is because the writer has only reported what the speakers said and not what he understood. This lack of organization in the presentation of main points with immense repetitions alters with the smooth flow of the document that makes the reader going forth and backwards. When the writer starts listing the recommendations for ensuring eradication of work violence, the writer says, “He made suggestions in three categories, which I will summarize here” and starts narrating instead of saying the main point from which he can now explain. In the concluding part, the conclusion seems to be lacking in creativity, which in the first place it should not be present because the entire memo is a summary. In short, the writer’s mention of the best recommendation in the last paragraph is inappropriate for he should have arranged the recommendations in the proper order of preference as he presented them.
The overall usability of the document is inadequate because starting from the language, awareness of the audience and organization, the document seems to be addressing a casual thing. This makes the document seems to be communicating a less serious issue, when it should be an official brief instead. The use of words such as “by the way” and “I think” are unofficial in their entirety and require some seasoning to present the intended information in an adequate manner. Therefore, the document has not met its obligation of informing of the best practices that will ensure prevention of workplace violence. This is because it will require the reader to take extra time reading the document to extract the relevant information, which is not the desired characteristic of a memo.
