Business Writing Tip #44—Useful words to use when

writing up minutes
Posted on February 23, 2013
When you’re writing up the minutes of a meeting, particularly a long meeting, you might find that
you keep using the same words over and over. In fact, the attendees at the meeting probably did this
and your notes reflect what they said. But such repetition in a written document is likely to make it
harder to read. People may get bored…

Sometimes you can get around this by changing how you write the minutes. When you’re recording a
discussion and find yourself writing, repeatedly, ‘Ms X said…’ and ‘Mr Y said…’ you can reword
the text to leave out the names.
Example:
‘Ms Johnson said that the logistics department’s computer system was having trouble handling the
volume of transactions and might crash.’

Becomes:

‘The logistics department’s computer system is having trouble handling the volume of transactions
and might crash.’

Now this is all well and good, but sometimes you need to find other words. Next time you’re looking
for different ways to write things, take a look at these lists.

When there has been some talk about a topic:

 analysed
 considered
 debated
 deliberated
 discussed
 examined
When something is suggested, or an idea put forward:

 hoped
 intended
 meant
 planned
 proposed
When people disagree:

 disagreed
 disputed
 not the case
And, when they agree:

 agreed
 concurred
Words for the ‘thing’ being discussed:

 challenge of…
 existence of…
 issue of…
 problem of…
 question of…
 topic of…
Words for ‘things’ the meeting is comparing:

 alternatives
 choice
 opportunity
 options
 preference
Words for talking about the positive aspects of something:

 advantages of
 benefits of
 merits of
 value of
 worth
And words for the negative aspects:

 dangers
 disadvantages
 drawbacks
 problems
 risks
 uncertainty
When the meeting expresses a preference for one thing over another:

 chose
 name
 opt
 pick
 prefer
 select
And if someone isn’t happy with something they might be:

 anxious
  apprehensive
 concerned
 troubled
 uneasy
 worried
If something might be possible, you can talk about the:

 chance
 likelihood
 possibility
 potential
 probability
 prospects
And when the meeting agrees, they:

 approved
 concluded
 decided
 determined
 resolved
In amongst all of this you will probably want to write that someone said something. ‘Say’ is, in my
book, a perfectly good verb. But in the minutes of a long meeting you might want some variety so
you can go with Ms X or Mr Y:

 acknowledged
 added
 advised
 clarified
 commented
 confirmed
 declared
 defined
 demonstrated
 described
 drew attention to
 emphasised
 established
 explained
 highlighted
 illustrated
 indicated
 informed
 outlined
 pointed out
 raised
 recalled
 reported
 said
 stated
 suggested
 understood
 verified
 reminded the meeting that