Chris Helms1/30/17ENG 3300-03Dr. Kelly WhitneyMeeting Minutes AnalysisDavid Ingham claims that meeting minutes are “one of the most complex rhetorical situations imaginable” in his article These Minutes Took 22 Hours. He says this because of the vast audience you might be talking to –peers, superiors, people not a part of the organization,really justanyone who wants to knowor be reminded ofwhat happened in the meeting. Because of this, accurately depicting what occurred in the meeting can be difficultbecause you do not know whatassumptions are safeto make. In this regard, I would agree with Ingham –meeting minutes present a very complexsituation. However, I do not think this makes it a particularly difficult task.The purpose of meeting minutes is to document what occurred in a meeting for future reference by people who may or may not have attended the meeting. This gives the minute taker substantial power. They can give the meeting a particular tone, infer meaning, etc. Because of this, some meeting minutes may give the correct facts but still be untrue because of the connotations and tone it is written with. My minutes capture a very factual setting, fitting of the class it took place in. There are many bullet points that look a lot likenotes one would take in a class period. There are also occasional time stamps to signify turning points in the class to give a rough estimate of each discussion period. This lack of personal touch lends itself to very little interpretation, so I would sayit is very true to what happened.Deciding what to leave out (for example, direct quotes) was where the challenge was.One of the difficult aspects of taking meetingminutes was picking what was important to record. For example, I left out quotes becauseI decided that information that specific was
unimportant to the class as a whole. If I were to have added quotes, however, it may have added credibility to my minutes because it is much easier to keep the minute taker accountable-someone can just ask the person quoted if they actually said it.Therefore, I might add a quote or be more specific if I were recording a statement from a boss of acompany rather than a statementBen posed in class, where it is less important to be totally accurate. The reason I do not think this task is particularly difficult is because all I am doing is writing down what I see & hear, there really is no invention. The only task I actually have is determining what to leave out so as to make the report both very readable and comprehensive.From this experience, I would say learning what is vital for an audience to know and what is not is even more important in technical writing than other genres. No one reads technical pieces for enjoyment, but to understand what happened or howto do something as clearly as possible. This does not necessarily mean the writing is short, but it does not have frivolous statements and phrases. I would argue further and say that thebiggest challenge in technical writing is determining what is important for the reader to know. For example, in my minutes, no one reads it to see how Ben was feeling that day, they want to know what he said at 10:46am that started a ten minute conversation. Therefore, the faster and more efficiently I can convey that information, the better the writing which means cutting out anything that does not relaythat information.In short, no matter who the audience is, they read meeting minutes for one reason –to read about what happened in the meeting. Therefore, the more efficiently, not just quickly or briefly, I convey that, the better the meeting minutes are. This, I believe, is representative of technical writing as a whole –an efficient and comprehensive relay of information.11I feel that I should mention here that I’m not trying to define technical writing, just that if it isgoodtechnical writing,then it has this aspect. If something has this aspect, it is not necessarily technical writing.