Nearly all organizations record notes about meetings and write minutes that are distributed to meeting participants and others with a stake in the meetings. The minutes provide a permanent record, provide a reference to check commitments and decisions, and provide a record of results for those who were not present at the meeting.

Meeting minutes are critical to the organization because they become the official written record of the meetings. In the end, they are the only objective, verifiable record of what occurred. As such, they must be complete, clear, and understandable.

However, few people who record and write the minutes for meetings are trained in the skills required. Most simply follow the style of minutes from previous meetings.

The Purpose of This Course

This course will teach you how to record and write minutes to serve as a reference for those who attended the meeting and to provide a record of the results of the meeting for those who did not attend. Since the style of recording minutes will differ among organizations, various types of minutes are presented, from sketchy outlines to detailed transcripts of the meeting.

The title for the person who takes the minutes in a meeting also differs among organizations. “Minutes taker,” “secretary,” “clerk,” “stenographer,” and “recorder” are some of the titles used. For consistency, we will use the title “recorder” in this course.

E-mail, Email, e-mail, and email

New words such as “online” and “email” are spelled in different ways because some educated people accept one spelling and others another. Many currently use ”e-mail” and “on-line” while others use “email” and “online.” The important thing is to be consistent—spell them the same way throughout any single document. We have chosen to use “e-mail” and “online” in this course. You may use “email” or “on-line.” That is fine. Just be consistent.

About the Instructor

The instructor is R. Craig Hogan, Ph.D., director of the Business Writing Center. Dr. Hogan has taught writing for 32 years at two community colleges, three universities, and the Business Writing Center. He has been the manager of communications at a telephone billing service company and owner of a consulting firm writing reports, manuals, documentation, and advertising copy for a wide range of companies. The Business Writing Center is a Web-based school (at businesswriting.com) providing business writing training through online courses and workshops at company sites.

Explanation of this
Online Interactive Textbook