Technical Memos🔗

Like writing poetry, legal documents, or a 5-paragraph essay, technical writing is a special skill. Grammar, style, and clarity of prose are just as important here as in other types of composition, if not more so. Some people get a 4 year degree in technical writing; technical writing itself is a career.

In your role as a developer or engineering manager, you must know how to write a technical memorandum, or “memo”. Follow e.g., these guidelines and requirements when you write your technical memo. For our purposes, a memo should also ...

• have white-space margins at least 1 inch wide on all sides.

• use an 11-12 point font.

• be no longer than a page or two.

• be single spaced and left justified

• use short, clear content-specific (e.g. not "Summary", but "Quarterly Sales Objectives") headings for each segment

• put important points or details into lists rather than paragraphs when possible

• contain a purpose statement in the opening paragraph

• incorporate the major headings in its purpose-statement in the opening paragraph.

• use the following distribution for format:

  • Header: 1/8 of the memo

  • Introduction, Context, and Task: 1/4 of the memo

  • Summary and Discussion: 1/2 of the memo

  • Closing and (Necessary) References: 1/8 of the memo

You should at the very least follow MIT’s Technical Memo Writing Checklist before you submit a memo. Different memos will serve different purposes, and some structure can change as necessary. style and structure. Different organizations have different preferred styles and formatting procedures, so be flexible and adapt. If your assignment description is more specific or differs on any of the above points, follow your assignment description.