Office English: Writing notes

你在开会时记笔记的能力怎么样？

How good are you at writing notes in a meeting?

说实话，我特别不擅长这个。

Personally, I'm really bad at doing it.

我光顾着听大家说话了，根本没想起来要记好笔记。

I am concentrating on the conversation and so I don't really remember to make good notes.

等我回头再看的时候，根本看不懂自己写了什么。

And then when I look at them afterwards, they don't make sense.

我觉得开会记笔记关键是要简洁。

I think good notes in meetings have to be short.

没必要把每句话都记下来。

You don't want to write every single word.

今天我们要聊聊怎么写和分享会议记录。

Today, we'll be talking about making and sharing written notes.

大家好，欢迎收听BBC学习英语的《职场英语》，您的职场英语指南。

Hello, and welcome to Office English from BBC Learning English, your podcast guide to the world of work.

我是皮帕。

I'm Pippa.

我是菲尔。

And I'm Phil.

你可以在我们的网站上一边听播客，一边对照字幕和文字稿。

You can read along with this podcast using the subtitles and transcript on our website.

网址是 bbclearningenglish.com。

That's bbclearningenglish.com.

菲尔，刚才我们听了BBC学习英语团队分享的会议笔记经验。

So Phil, have just heard from our Learning English colleagues about how they take notes from meetings.

你记笔记拿手吗？

Are you good at taking notes?

我觉得我记笔记还行，但记出来的别人往往看不懂。

I think I'm quite good at taking notes, but I'm not great at taking notes that anyone else can understand.

原来如此。

I see.

而且我经常拿了笔记也不知道该怎么用。

And I'm not always very good at doing anything with the notes that I take.

明白了。

Okay.

你写是写了，但之后就给忘了。

So you write something down, but then you kind of forget about it.

是的。

Yes.

除非是特别重要的事，我才会特意记下来。

Unless it's something really important, and then I would note it down.

明白了。

Okay.

对。

Right.

我觉得我可能也差不多。

I think I am maybe similar.

我觉得会后得马上处理一下我的笔记。

I think I have to do something with my notes straight away after the meeting.

把笔记发给相关人员，整理出会议中的任务清单。

So send them round to people, make a list of tasks from the meeting.

不然的话，有时候笔记容易乱掉或者弄丢，特别是开会多的时候，很容易就忘了这些笔记是干嘛的、背景是什么。

Otherwise, yeah, sometimes my notes can get a bit jumbled or lost because if you have a lot of meetings, you can kind of forget what these notes were for or the context of them.

今天我们会聊聊怎么记笔记、跟进会议中的任务，还会讲讲会议纪要，那是正式商务会议里更规范的记录方式。

So today, we'll talk about taking notes, sharing actions from the meeting, and we'll also talk about writing minutes, which are more formal notes for a formal business meeting.

好的。

Okay.

我们先来举个例子。

Let's start with a scenario.

你正在和同事开一个常规会议，想做点记录。

You're having a regular meeting with your colleagues at work and you want to take notes.

你觉得最好的做法是什么，菲尔？

What's the best approach, Phil?

其实，最好先 agreed 好由谁来记笔记。

Actually, I think it's a good idea first to agree who's going to take notes.

因为如果只有一人负责记笔记，其他人就能更轻松地参与讨论。

Because if you've got one person taking all the notes, it means other people are a bit freer to contribute to the meeting.

对。

Yeah.

如果每个人都自己记，那简直是浪费时间。

If everyone's writing notes, it's a bit of a waste of time.

只需要一份笔记就够了。

You only need one set of notes.

但如果有条件，最好轮流让不同的人来记笔记。

But also it's good to, if you can, vary who takes the notes in each meeting.

因为很多人会觉得，一旦自己负责记笔记，就很难专心参与讨论，光顾着听和记录，就没法好好发言了。

So it's not always the same person, because I think a lot of us would find that when we're writing notes, it's harder to participate in the meeting, it's harder to talk, because you have to concentrate on what people are saying and make sure you've written things down.

记笔记的时候要注意，没必要写完整句子，也不用记下每个词，尤其是你得写得快的时候。

And then when you're taking notes, some things to remember are that you don't need to write full sentences or every word, particularly because you're writing quickly.

你记下的内容要能让你想起来、用得上，但不用写成完整的、语法完美的英文句子。

You want to be able to take down something that you'll be able to remember and you'll be able to use, but you don't need to write it down in full, in perfect English.

对，你可以用项目符号、标题这类方式来整理笔记。

Yeah, so you can use bullet points and headings, and different things like that to help with your notes.

用你自己看得懂的方式写就行。

Write them in a way that makes sense to you.

最重要的是，要把别人说好的要做的事，或者你们一致同意要做的事记下来。

And the key thing is to make sure you write down things that people have said that they're going to do, or that you've agreed that you will do.

这些我们叫会议的行动项。

And we call these the action points from a meeting.

这才是最该记的关键内容，因为要是没记下来，你很可能就忘了自己答应要做的事。

And that's the most important thing really to note, because if you haven't written that down, then you're probably going to forget to do the things that you said you would do.

我们刚才讲了怎么记笔记。

We've talked about making notes.

接下来聊聊会后怎么把笔记分享给大家。

Now let's talk about sharing notes with everyone after the meeting.

皮帕，你能把你记笔记的那张纸发一下吗？

Pippa, would you just send the piece of paper that you've written all your notes on?

不行。

No.

我不会这么做，因为如果我把会议中记的原始笔记发出去，大多数人可能根本看不懂。

I would not do that because if I sent round what I'd written during the meeting, most people probably wouldn't understand it.

我通常会用自己能看懂的方式记笔记。

I usually write things in a way that makes sense to me.

然后我会再整理一遍，确保别人也能看明白。

And then I will review the notes and make sure that they make sense to other people.

有时候我会改成完整的句子，或者多加几个词。

So I might write in full sentences or just add a few more words.

我会更清楚地列出我们讨论过的待办事项。

I would list more clearly the action points that we discuss.

有些人会在项目符号后面用不同颜色标注，或者单独列一个待办事项清单。

So some people do this in a different colour after kind of the bullet point, or you could have a separate list, which has your action points.

所以，我肯定会先仔细检查一遍笔记，再发给别人。

So, yeah, I would definitely review my notes before sending them to other people.

对。

Yeah.

不对。

No.

我也是这样。

I'm the same.

我随手记的那些笔记，别人根本看不懂。

It would be very hard to understand the notes that I scribble down in a meeting.

而且开会的时候，内容也不总是按逻辑顺序来的。

There's also things as well that in a meeting, you don't always go in the most logical order.

所以我通常会重新整理一下顺序，把相关的内容归到一起。

So I might try and make the order make more sense or group things together that make more sense together.

是的。

Yeah.

我发笔记给别人时，通常都会问一句：大家还有什么要补充的吗？

And I would usually, when I send notes to people, just ask, does anyone have anything else to add?

因为做笔记的时候，人都是会出错的，难免会漏掉一些内容。

Because when you're making notes, we're all human, you can miss something.

或者别人对某件事的记忆可能跟你不一样。

Or someone might have just remembered something differently to you.

这样问一下，可以确保没有遗漏什么重要的信息。

So that can be helpful just in case you've missed anything.

好的。

Okay.

我们刚才聊了非正式会议的笔记，但有时候会议确实需要更正式的记录。

We've talked about notes for more informal meetings, but sometimes meetings need to have more formal notes.

对吧，菲尔？

Right, Phil?

是的。

Yes.

我们有一种叫会议纪要的东西，是正式记录会议中说了什么、决定了什么，甚至还能当动词用。

We have something called minutes, which is like a formal record of what's said and what's decided in a meeting, and we we can even use that as a verb.

你可以说：‘谁来负责记会议纪要？’

You you can say, can someone minute this meeting?

或者说：‘我来记这次会议的纪要。’

Or I'm going to minute this meeting.

意思就是负责整理这份正式记录。

And it it means to keep that formal record.

这跟我们之前提到的随手记的笔记类似，还是有点不一样？

Are they similar to the notes that we talked about scribbling down earlier, or are they a bit different?

有点不一样。

They are a bit different.

基本原则是一样的，就是别把每句话都逐字记下来，但纪要更正式一些。

The same principles apply in that you don't want to write word for word everything that's said, but they're more official.

必须清楚地记录下讨论的内容。

There needs to be a clear record of what was said.

这些通常用于更正式的会议。

And these are often used for more official meetings.

比如公司董事会的会议，可能每几个月开一次。

So maybe a board meeting at your company, and that happens maybe every couple of months.

每次会议的纪要都会存档，形成一份持续更新的记录。

And so the minutes are stored for each meeting, and there's kind of an ongoing record of this meeting.

而且它们通常也有很固定的格式，对吧，菲尔？

They usually follow quite a specific structure as well, don't they Phil?

没错，虽然具体要求可能由公司或机构决定，但几乎都会从会议名称、日期开始，接着列出与会人员，通常还会注明缺席人员。

Yes, I mean, there may be stuff that's determined by your company, your organisation, but almost always, they'll start with the title of the meeting, the date, and a list both of the people who are there, and also quite often the apologies.

缺席人员就是那些被邀请了但因故没能到场的人。

And that just means the people who were asked to come but couldn't come for whatever reason.

对。

Yes.

然后纪要就会按照议程的顺序来写。

And then the minutes will follow the agenda.

我们之前在这档播客里聊过议程。

So we've talked about an agenda before in this podcast.

其实就是列出会议要讨论的内容。

It's just a list of what we're going to talk about in the meeting.

如果你在写会议纪要，通常每个议程项下都要客观地总结讨论内容。

And you would usually, if you were writing minutes under each agenda point, you would summarise the discussion objectively.

所谓客观，就是公平地呈现所有人的观点和讨论的全貌。

And objectively just means fairly reflecting all opinions, the discussion that was had.

我说过，不一定要逐字记录，但也不能只偏向一方，得把两边的意见都涵盖到。

Like I said, it doesn't have to be every single word, but you wouldn't want it to just kind of reflect one side of the debate, you want kind of both of them.

然后还要确保所有做出的决定都清楚地记录下来。

And then you'd make sure that any decisions that are taken are recorded clearly.

而每个决定后面，往往会有待办事项和截止时间。

And of course, from that decision, there might be action points, there might be deadlines.

这些也得一并记清楚。

So you'd need to record that as well.

如果你在想该怎么记笔记，又不用把每个人说的话都写下来，不如换个思路，重点关注讨论的结果，而不是做逐字记录。

And if you're thinking about how do I write this down without writing everything everyone says, I think it's useful to think about outcomes rather than writing a transcript.

那这场讨论最终达成了什么结果？

So what was the outcome of the discussion?

这才是会议纪要里最该记下来的关键内容。

That's the crucial thing that you need to write down in a set of minutes.

对。

Yeah.

另外一件特别重要的事，是要明确责任人。

The other thing that's also really important to write down are the responsibilities.

比如谁负责执行某项任务，或者谁负责监督执行情况，又或者谁是这项工作的受益方。

So it might be who's responsible for doing something, or it might be who's responsible for checking on the people that they're doing it or who they're doing it for.

你常会在纪要里看到后面跟着人名缩写，这些一般都能和文档开头的名单对应上。

You'll often see in the minutes, you see people's initials written down next to things which you can usually match to the names at the top of the document.

对。

Yeah.

还有，会议纪要一定要在会后发给大家，因为通常大家需要核对一下，确保纪要准确无误，如果有人觉得某些讨论没被正确记录，也可能会提出修改。

And then another crucial step with minutes is that they're always sent round after the meeting, because usually people need to review to make sure that minutes are accurate, and there might be changes to the minutes if people feel that a certain discussion hasn't been represented correctly in them.

正如我们说的，这些纪要要作为会议的正式记录保存，有时下一次会议还会翻出来参考，对吧，菲尔？

Because as we said, they're kept as a record of the meeting, and sometimes referred to in the next meeting, right Phil?

确实，很多会议一开始都会先回顾上一次的纪要，确认之前承诺的任务是否完成，或者看看有没有因为上次会议的决定而出现新问题。

Yeah, it's very common that a meeting starts by going through the minutes of the previous meeting just to check that actions that have been promised have been done, or to see if any problems have come up from the things that were that were agreed at the previous meeting.

明白了。

Okay.

好了，这期《职场英语》就到这里。

That's it for this episode of Office English.

我们下周再见，带来下一期内容。

We'll be back next week with another episode.

你们希望我们下一期聊些什么话题？

What would you like us to talk about next on this podcast?

有关职场英语的问题，欢迎发到 learningenglishbbc dot co dot UK。

Send us your questions about English at work to learningenglishbbc dot co dot UK.

那先这样，再见。

Bye for now.

再见。

Bye.

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