英语会议记录写作指南：从准备到撰写的全流程技巧

Minutes are the written record of what happened at a meeting. During the meeting, someone takes notes, and after the meeting, that person writes a report about what happened. I believe that minutes here doesn't refer to time. Its original meaning was small notes or small writing, and that fits in with our first learning objective for this lesson, to write concise or brief minutes of meetings. We'll also look at vocabulary related to writing minutes, and finally, we'll identify best practices. First, read these different options for minutes. Which do you think are the most common types of minutes? The first one is not common at all. It would take too long to read all this detail. And if you need that exact record of a meeting, just make a video. Even then, no one would want to watch the whole thing. The last ones might be sent out sometimes as messages to announce a decision or to remind people of something they need to do. But meaning minutes are not an announcement. Written minutes are a short report.

So here are the most common ways to write minutes. The difference in these two is just how much information to add about a discussion, and we'll discuss that in a minute. If you know ahead of time, before the meeting, that you're the one responsible for taking the minutes, here are some ideas. First, look at minutes of previous meetings. See what they included. This will tell you what people in your organization expect to see. Your job will be a lot easier if there's a meeting agenda. The agenda will have the list of attendees and an outline of the meeting. When you know the topics, you can look up key words or information related to those topics. This will help you understand things during the meeting and also help you as you write. If possible, get to the meeting early. As people arrive, check their names on the agenda. And if you get there early, you can sit in a place where you can see who's talking and also any visuals like slides or flip charts. If you don't know everyone who's at the meeting, print out some name cards for people to put on the table in front of them.

Okay, so the meeting begins. And now you have to figure out how to take minutes while you participate in the discussion. This is always hard. There are a lot of different ways to take minutes. Some people try to write everything that people say. Other people just write a few notes on the agenda. And some people use a template or a kind of chart. Here's an example of a chart from the meeting you saw in Lesson One last week. This was a brainstorming meeting so there weren't notes for any follow-up action. Basically, just use whatever note-taking system works best for you. One other note about taking minutes during the meeting. If you don't understand what someone said, consider asking for clarification right then. The chances are other people are also confused or didn't hear clearly. Here's some examples of things you might say to clarify. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I didn't catch what you said, Tina. I'm not clear on that last point, Eric. Karen, I think you said the deadline is in two weeks. Is that correct? I apologize if I'm the only one who doesn't know this, but what is MRQ? The last question. Do you want any of this in the minutes? Is one you might ask if the discussion seems private, controversial, or even off topic?

Try to write the minutes within 24 hours. You'll remember details better, and the minutes will be more useful. As you're writing, you may need to check with the chair or other people who are at the meeting to clarify what they said, and if you wait too long, they may not remember. Some people even send a draft of the minutes around to everyone before sending the minutes out to people who weren't there. Okay, so we've talked about some ideas for what to do before a meeting, and when you're taking minutes, now you're ready to write the minutes, and here are some guidelines. Ask with everything you write, think about the person or people who will read your minutes. Why are they reading them? Many times people read minutes because they weren't able to attend the meeting. Absentee members want to know what they missed. For people who were at the meeting, the minutes help remind them of what action they need to take. And sometimes the minutes of a meeting are sent to a top administrator to keep that person, that administrator, informed of a team's progress. Or last, maybe an organization wants to keep a record of decisions and reasons for those decisions for future reference.

All of these are factors that are important when you're thinking about what to put in the minutes. Knowing who's going to read the minutes and why they want them will help you make decisions about how much and what to write. The key questions are usually what were the topics of discussion, what decisions were made, what action is required next, and when is the next meeting? The level of formality in the minutes depends on who's reading them. Is it a small, friendly group of coworkers? Informal meetings are fine. Is it a top manager and are the reader's strangers to you? A formal tone will make your minutes and your meeting sound more professional. This is why it's good to look at previous minutes. They'll give you an idea of the level of formality you need to use. We'll look at some of the language choices that create a formal or informal tone in a few minutes, but here are two examples of an informal and formal way of writing minutes. Tina showed us the results of the consumer survey attached, and we agreed that the market has the most potential for sales. Following an examination of the attached consumer survey data, the marketing team decided on Pike Place Market.

Your job will be easier if the meeting has a clear agenda to start, and if the team leader keeps everything on track. Then, you can just use the agenda as your outline with the same headings and format. If you don't have a good agenda to follow, just decide on your own format. Here are some examples of important information to include before and after the body of the minutes. Do you remember the guidelines for headings from course one? The headings in minutes follow the same ones. Do short, noun phrases, not complete sentences. The ways you organize the body of the minutes really depends on the meeting itself. What kind of meeting it was and what happened in the meeting? Here are some examples of minutes from different types of meetings. As you read these, think about why the writer organized the information in this way. Now look at pros and cons. Pros and cons are short ways to say things that are positive, a pro, or negative, a con, sort of similar to for and against. People in business are busy, so it's very important to be concise. So what does concise mean? It means that you give all the necessary information clearly, but in a few words. Write only what happened in the meeting, general information about discussions and decisions. But do not write what each person said, no, he said, and then she said, and then he asked, that level of detail is not necessary. You do not add information that is important. Remember to ask yourself questions like, what do the readers need to know? And will this information be helpful when someone looks at it in two years?

Many times, meetings deal with very routine matters, but occasionally you have disagreements in some strong emotions. As a note-taker, try to be neutral. That is, try to write what people said without giving your opinion or making any judgment. And then, when you write the meeting minutes, don't take sides or present your own opinion. One way to do that is not to add a lot of adjectives or adverbs. Don't say, for example, that discussion was long, or that people discussed something angrily. Leave words like that out of the minutes.