This is an edited and annotated version of Heather's letter.  Required items are highlighted in blue.

TO:               Dr. Rose Norman

[Open with an overview.]
Enclosed you will find my final report for EH 501 entitled "An Analysis of Training Manuals for Peer Tutors in Post-Secondary Writing Centers" due December 7, 1999. [Then state your main finding] From interviews with five writing center directors and four consultants, I found that each writing center has its own unique circumstances for training. The manuals from these same writing centers do contain some consistent areas of attention. The manual produced for the University of Alabama in Huntsville Writing Center should reflect these findings.

[Then comes the descriptive abstract.]
The purpose of this report is to develop recommendations for a new training manual for peer tutors in a post-secondary writing center. Initially the report gives a brief description of the writing center environment, pedagogy, and theory. For the specific application of peer tutor training, the findings from interviews with Dr. Diana Calhoun Bell—director of the UAH Writing Center, directors of other writing centers, and consultants are presented. The report compares information from these practitioner inquiries with the content and form of the sample manuals obtained from three other university writing centers and with the existing UAH manual. The report concludes with recommendations for the UAH Writing Center’s Training Manual.

[Then add whatever else you need to say.]
After an initial email request to twenty-five writing centers, I was able to collect three peer tutor training manuals and receive answers to interview questions from two other directors. I interviewed four consultants in the UAH Writing Center using an abbreviated form of the questions. Dr. Bell has continued to express interest in this study and its continuation into an actual product. I hope to undertake the writing of the UAH Writing Center Consultant Training Manual as an independent study in the next semester.