Now that you have gathered all this great information from your interview, it is time to put it all together in a Memo reporting what you learned in the interview! Memos are frequently used in business as a concise report of your activities to supervisors or co-workers.

Block Format and Spacing

Use block format where you align all lines against the left margin.  Use one inch margins on all four sides. Single space the lines in the paragraphs and double space between the paragraphs.

Font

Use size 12pt, Times New Roman font.

Content

Paragraph 1:

• Summarize your purpose
• Highlight the topics of your interview
• Share your conclusions about your interview information

Paragraph 2+: Use your topics as headings and describe what you learned about that topic in a paragraph under the heading.

Last 2 paragraphs:

• Describe how the interview information affected your career choice.
• Reflect on your performance as an interviewer and describe what you did well and how you could improve. Use specific examples.

Refer to the

example memo

Actions

 and grading rubric to see what’s expected on the memo.

Submit the final draft of your Memo.

Sample Memo
This sample memo demonstrates correct memo format. You will need to provide your
own content.

DATE: October 3, 2015
TO: Professor Shirene McKay
FROM: Orlo Manning
SUBJECT: Information-Gathering Interview

I interviewed Glenda Sumsion, an elementary school teacher, to learn about teaching
Elementary Education, Special Education, and Sign Language. We met right after school
in her classroom where it was most convenient for her. The large amount of work
required to teach surprised me, however, Ms. Sumsion’s love for the students and
dedication inspired me to continue with a teaching career. I was also motivated to
rehearse my questions more the next time I do an interview so the interview flows better.

Elementary Education

Ms. Sumsion thought that the teachers and experiences you have as a child have a great
impact on your desire to be a teacher later in life. Almost everyone can remember their
favorite teacher as a child and the influence they were to them.

Teaching takes a lot of dedication. Many projects are required and many classes
prepared. I never realized all of the preparation that goes into preparing the curriculum
and making it memorable for the students.

Teachers deal with many difficult tasks each day. One of these tasks is to keep a child’s
attention for a long period of time. Another challenge is to deal with the few
uncooperative children. Many different discipline actions have to be tried until one is
found to work. Despite these challenges, teaching seems very rewarding. Ms. Sumsion
has loved children all her life. Nothing could stop her from accomplishing her dream of
being a teacher. The ability to teach a young child is priceless to her, and she wouldn’t
change anything.

Special Education

Special Education takes a lot more work and dedication than teaching a regular class of
children. These children have special needs, and all of their needs require special
attention, which sounds very difficult to me. Parents are more involved with these
children and sometimes can be overbearing. Each of these children has such different
needs that it seems impossible to teach them all at the same time. The curriculum is not as
advanced and fast-paced as that of a normal class.

Communicating with these students is harder and definitely takes a lot of patience. These
children seem harder to discipline, although I don’t think they would need to be
disciplined as often. Getting attached to these children seems to be easy because they

could grow so close to you and sometimes even become dependent on you. To me,
teaching Special Education seems emotionally draining compared to other classes. I takes
a very special person to teach Special Education.

Sign Language

My interviewee doesn’t teach sign language, but she uses it in school a lot. I would think
learning how to sign would be hard for a deaf person because they can’t speak. However,
it is just like a young child learning to speak English or any other language. Learning
Sign languages takes time and a good example.

The language consists of signs and symbols representing words. They have an alphabet
that can be used to spell anything if the sign for it is unknown. There are no set signs for
names of people. Usually they are just spelled out by signing the letters of the alphabet,
or the person can make up a sign for themselves.

Signing can be done fast or slow just like speaking fast or slow. Tones and expressions
can also be shown in signing by the look on the signer’s face or the body language they
use while signing. Sign language is fascinating, and I think everyone should learn some
of it.

Interview Analysis

From this interview I learned a lot about a teaching career. I had always known that
teaching requires a good deal of patience and that the monetary rewards are not great.
The information Ms. Sumsion gave me verified that view. I think this is something I can
live with. I was inspired by her ability to reach out to these students, and I feel I could
contribute a lot in this area.

I think I learned even more about how to conduct an information-gathering interview.
What surprised me most was the difficulty of conducting an interview that flows well. I
had written my questions ahead of time, but I hadn’t really practiced saying them out
loud. Sometimes Ms. Sumsion would answer part of one of my later questions while I
was asking her one of my original questions. This interrupted my logical organization of
the interview. It was all really good information, but it didn’t seem very organized. I
ended up losing track and skipping a few of my question. Also, it was hard to maintain
eye contact with her, listen to what she was saying, remember her points, and get ready to
ask my next question all at the same time. I ended up just reading my questions from the
paper. It sounded kind of stiff. Next time I conduct an interview I will become very
familiar with all my questions so I can orchestrate the interviewer better.