What does the word minutes mean in communication? What are the things to consider when writing a minute?

If what you are asking is: “How does one best take ‘minutes’ during a meeting”, then you are referring to ‘minuta scriptura’ (“small notes”); a system of notation to describe the pertinent moments of the meeting.

Before answering the question with a ‘Modern’ perspective: There once was a fairly common office staple in ‘Western’ society - the ‘stenographer’. A Stenographer was one trained in the skill of using ‘shorthand’ (Such as the Gregg method) in order to be able to transcribe the notes. The idea of a Stenographer, (as is still used in many Court systems), is to ‘catch everything’. Taking the Minutes is what one does when one is *NOT* a trained stenographer.

In current context - you constantly keep in mind “if I were not here, which parts would I need to know?”. You are creating a detailed-yet-concise summary, yet not in ‘point form’, merely condensed.* You paraphrase longer statement into shorter, yet equivalent ones by *describing*, rather than *recording*.

Exempli Gratia: Rather than describe all the details of *who* the Chairperson was and *how* they called the Meeting ‘To Order’, you write/type: “The Chairperson called the Meeting to Order. A Motion to take the Reading of the Minutes of the last meeting as ‘Assumed’ was put forth; there was no Second for this Motion, and therefore the Reading of The Minutes occurred as per standard procedure. The first topic of discussion, as per the Agenda…”

The Agenda is what is expected to happen in the meeting; the Minutes are a record of what actually happened, relative the Agenda.

If that is not what you are asking - my apologies, but I cannot help you without further detail.

I hope this helps!

Craig

*I apologize for the ‘merely’; the editors at Reader’s Digest created ‘condensed books’ that demonstrate an excellent grasp of ‘keeping’ the necessary and ‘cutting’ the unnecessary - but from a literary perspective, not a factual one.)