Week 4: Organize Like a Writer

Review Memo Writing Steps

Executive Summaries & BLUF

• 1. Writing the right BLUF for the right audience

  2. Using BLUF in your memos and essays

     • buried or implied

     • up front and explicit

  3. Writing executive summaries v. abstracts

Assignment

Resources

• Inverted Triangle

• BLUF in Intelligence Report

• Executive summary exercise

• Memo rubric

• Technical nonsense memo

The problem with messages that lack a clear bottom line.