Satiric Memo Activity

Lesson by Amanda Bales

Description (for Instructors)

This activity develops students’ understanding of genre and rhetorical situations through an exercise in creative application. After performing some preparatory analysis of and response to provided texts, students compose satiric memos, in which the writer’s purpose is deliberately obscured in “garbage language”—a term discussed in Garbage Language.docx. While students have the freedom to invent whatever background details they want (i.e., the name of the corporation, the contact person, the purpose of the memo, etc.), they must explain the choices they made in order to satirize the corporate, tech company memo in an accompanying writing rationale.

Not only does this activity hone students’ ability to purposefully develop/modify texts to achieve a set objective, but it also builds familiarity with the memo genre—a genre integral to business communication and incorporated into BTW 250’s assignment sequence (i.e., Strengths and Goals Memo).

Students submit their reading responses, satiric memos, and rationales to a submission tool on the course management system of the instructor’s choosing (i.e., Moodle, Canvas, etc.).

Explanation (for Students)

1.) Read text: Read the following article on Garbage Language.docx.

2.) Watch video: Watch the video, “‘Thought Leader’ gives talk that will inspire your thoughts” by CBC Radio.

3.) Answer questions: Based upon your reading of Garbage Language.docx and the CBC video, answer the following questions:

  1. What is the rhetorical situation for Garbage Language.docx?
  2. In your own words, what is “garbage language?”
  3. Invent 3 “garbage language” phrases or words of your own. Use these words/phrases in at least one sentence each,  and provide a “plain” language translation. (As a guide, consider how many of these current phrases mirror the technology being used by specific fields. Or how many take lifestyle or location-based language (surfing, hiking, beer brewing….etc…) and insert it into their field.)
  4. Provide a link to your own example of the kind of video “‘Thought Leader’ gives talk that will inspire your thoughts” is satirizing. Then, Compare these two videos. Analyze how the video you have chosen falls into these satirized patterns, as well as how it might differ from them. 

4.) Compose a satiric memo (300-400 words): Compose a memo that satirizes the corporate, tech company memo genre. You can be as inventive with the details of the memo as you’d like (i.e. the name of the corporation, the contact person, etc.), and you may choose your own memo’s purpose, with the understanding that this purpose, will, of course, be obscured in “garbage language.” Think of the CBC Radio’s video as a guide for this assignment.

5.) Compose a rationale (300-500 words): Compose a rationale in which you explain what choices you made in your satiric memo and why. How did your choices allow you to satirize the corporate, tech company memo genre?

Some elements to consider (though this is not an exhaustive list) are as follows:

  • Physical appearance (i.e., paragraphing, headings, etc.)
  • Diction (i.e., word choice)
  • Sentence style (i.e., length, complexity, etc.)
  • Information (i.e., what information did you include and/or leave out?)

This rationale need not be in paragraph form. You can make use of bullet points and other list forms, but make certain you explain not only the decisions that you made, but also why you made them. For example, you could write the following:

  • I used the word “synergy” in every sentence. I made this decision because it’s a buzzword tech companies like to use without seeming to understand what it means. Using it in every sentence was a way of pushing this uninformed diction habit to the extreme.

6.) Submit materials: Submit your question responses, satiric memo, and rationale to the appropriate submission tool(s).

Student Examples

Student Example of Response Questions

  1. Beginning with the text, the piece is reminiscing real world, actual instances that portray the usage of garbage languages. The work is very descriptive and provides many examples in work life situations in order to highlight corporate lingo. The author of this work seems to be Molly Young who is a book critic from NY. Next, the audience for this communication is anyone seeking an informative/satirical piece about corporate language especially those who have experienced it first hand or are about to work in that specific environment. Further, the purpose seems to be to educate those not fully aware or understanding what corporate jargon is and the meaning behind incorporating it in certain situations. Finally, the setting is 2020 (when the article was written) however garbage language has been present for decades now I am sure and the surrounding environment is a typical corporate/office like job area.
  2. Garbage language is jargon-heavy speech that is used for corporate communication to express various messages. Sometimes the message is meaningful however with garbage language, most often than not, there is no substance behind the phrases. Garbage language to me seems like a form of communication that was created to enhance one’s business contribution but in reality, covering up simple actions/ideas. All a corporate flex to sound more sophisticated.
  3. A) Let’s dip our toes into this another time shall we. “Dip our toes”- revisit the topic at a later
    B) After reviewing past performance, we must figure out how to stop commercial chopping. “Commercial Chop” – the rate at which sales decline.
    C) I think it’s time our company participates in some ESC, we would really like to connect our employees as much as possible. “ESC”- Environmentally Sound Collaboration, simply meaning let’s collaborate more often.
  4. https://www.ted.com/talks/janet_echelman_taking_imagination_seriously?language=en
    This video is a Ted talk by Janet Echelman speaking about her art journey and the difficulties encountered and then her successful crafts in nets, similar to those that fisherman use. Although this Ted talk had a great story, it was taken very seriously, partially because it was a Ted Talk. The speaker, Janet, uses such ‘sophisticated’ and ‘intense’ diction to tell her story to the audience. She uses pictures, graphs (map), and has similar moments of audience laughter that the Thought Leader video portrayed. The Thought Leader satirized the ‘seriousness’ in many educational or informative presentations given, and the Ted Talk fits this categorization perfectly. A speaker with super serious changing tones, an extensive presentation, random audience clapping and the importance of being ‘centre stage’ to express a message.

Student Example of Satiric Memo

TO: David Whiteguy, Developer of Thought Technology

FROM: Name of Student, Busy Work Director

SUBJECT: Carrying the 3 yesterday during one of our DOOR sessions resulted in the Ideas Council determining a potential need to salt and pepper the market; Ideas Council should reconvene soon

As per usual, during one of our bihourly DOOR sessions, the Ideas Council saw it absolutely necessary to carry the 3 once again. Here at DataIdeasThoughtsSocraticSeminarCorp, we pride ourselves on creating our data, data, and data melting pot in order to review the most efficient course of action in a sustainable manner. This carrying the 3 led to a tech revelation that we could not foresee coming: every single one of our customers is in the 23-29 Seattle Manbun demographic.

Salt and Peppering the Market

Through extensive data market analysis with a focus on improving efficiency (DMAWAFOIE), we have determined that increasing our diversity in our customer base is a must. This mainly entails aggressively expanding our target demographic from white, Seattle-based males who are between the ages of 23-29 to white males who are between the ages of 23-29. The Thought Committee recently met for 8 hours and determined that we should change the color of our logo from baby blue to powder blue, as this will foster a more diverse customer base. This change will take place immediately starting in 2 years.

DMAWAFOIE

Our DMAWAFOIE found that 92% of all of our customers consumed avocado toast this week, but the sales of avocado toast are actually declining by 0.04% over the past 7.5 half-hours. This means that our customer base currently does not represent the ideas and thoughts that people are thinking. We also came to a startling analysis that women make up about 50% of the country but quickly decided that appealing to them or hiring any of them would be detrimental to our salt and peppering efforts. Finally, The Thought Committee discovered that power blue is 39.7% more likely to convert people who do not live in Seattle through extensive thought analysis.

The Ideas Council will need to have another 10-hour grind and discuss (g&d) session where we grind and also discuss what these changes could mean for the company.

Student Example of Rationale

  • My goal was to make this memo excruciating to read if it were to be taken seriously. To accomplish this, I repeated myself multiple times and continually used the same words such as “thoughts”, “ideas”, or “data”. This helped me illustrate how absolutely terrible it would be to receive a memo similar to this one.
  • I made up an acronym for just about every phrase I used even when completely unnecessary (such as DMAWAFOIE). I did this to mock how companies try to sound slick by coming up with a “fast” way to abbreviate everything.
  • I came up with a title for multiple committees such as the Ideas Council. You can get the feel just from the name how these committees probably get nothing of substance done and are just another way for the company to seem smart or efficient.
  • I used plenty of garbage language from the previous assignment to show how confusing it would be to read a memo that uses all of these made up words and phrases.
  • A major part of this satirical memo for me was the complete inability to get to the point. I continued to go on tangents by throwing out garbage language and naming committees instead of saying the one “important piece” of information (that the company was changing their logo color). The insignificance of the changing the shades of blue in the logo contributed to the sense of worthlessness of this memo.
  • The subject was unnecessarily long as well, highlighting how companies often are never able to say anything directly.
  • Although it does not fall under the garbage language category, I had to joke about the lack of diversity in the tech world. From directing the memo to David Whiteguy, to the target demographic having nothing to do with women, I consistently made fun of tech companies for ignoring diversity to enhance the comedic effect.
  • I continually mentioned how different committees would have obscenely lengthy meetings where almost nothing happened. For example, the Thought Committee had an 8-hour meeting and decided to barely change the color of the logo. I incorporated this because companies tend to have excruciatingly long meetings where nothing is actually accomplished.
  • The logo color change was set to take place “immediately starting in 2 years” to show how managers often contradict themselves or try to frame announcements in ways to make the company look better. Additionally, this further demonstrates how these types of companies love to talk about change but are slow to actually enforce it.