Meeting and symposium reports
Meeting reports turn presentations and discussion into an account for readers who were not present. The work requires a clear brief, accurate understanding of the material and selective recording, whether the output is written prose or a live visual record.
Purpose and type of record
Clients can include patient organisations, pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions, commissioning anything from an academic account to a promotional piece about a medicine. Whatever its purpose, the report should accurately represent each speaker's presentation, be precise and scientifically correct, and comply with relevant codes of conduct. Presenters are often specialists who assume shared understanding of acronyms, euphemisms and scientific principles, so reporting their material demands understanding of complex, specialised content.
By 2013, the United Nations (UN), agencies including the World Health Organization and other international bodies had developed meeting-record procedures over about seventy years. A précis-writer produces an abridged version of a statement. The system distinguished two records.
- A summary record, prepared by a précis-writer, summarises each speaker's intervention in a few lines. Several statements agreeing with one speaker can become one sentence naming that delegate and the supporters. A three-hour meeting might produce twenty pages or more.
- A report summarises the gist of debate by topic, usually without naming delegates or countries unless requested. A three-hour meeting would produce no more than seven to ten pages.
The original aim was an immediate, clear record understandable to readers whose first language was not English. An experienced UN report-writer estimated in 2013 that probably 90% of readers used English as a second, third or fourth language.
Recordings and attendance
Audio recordings and slides can support a meeting report without attendance, although the work can be challenging. Several hazards affect accuracy.
- Poor audio makes speech difficult to understand.
- Strong accents can obscure words and nuances, especially in complex material, creating discrepancies between the speaker's intention and the report.
- Slides should supply facts and figures, but speakers may skip slides, fail to identify the current slide and speak rapidly.
- Unclear scientific or technical content outside the writer's expertise can take time to decipher and create a risk of errors.
Attendance shows how the speaker moves through slides, provides access to papers introduced during discussion and reveals the meeting's wider atmosphere, including informal exchanges that can explain otherwise obscure remarks. By 2013, financial constraints had made home-based reporting from sound files increasingly common in the UN system. Original-language and English-interpreted recordings, non-English transcripts and prepared speaker texts supplied support unavailable when the system began in the 1940s.
Notes and transcription
Transcription starts with familiarisation with the slides, then records each speaker's words with slides fitted into the text. One hour of speech can take three to four hours to transcribe, particularly with poor sound or a difficult accent; the resulting word-for-word account identifies slide positions but leaves substantial, potentially irrelevant material to condense for the intended audience. Reconciling science, speaker views and sponsor views adds to the editing difficulty.
An alternative method produces a first draft rather than a transcript.
- Review the slides thoroughly, identify each slide's key points and understand the speaker's general message.
- Listen while viewing the slides, making detailed notes for each slide, including references and whether its graphics suit the publication.
- Edit the resulting draft to length, with references and proposed graphics already identified.
This approach is much faster and potentially more accurate because it concentrates on understanding the points rather than recording every word. UN report-writing advice likewise recommends reading all relevant material and taking notes from the recording with slides and documents as if attending, because editing a full transcript can lose immediacy and misrepresent what happened.
Notes should be written up promptly while handwriting remains readable and events memorable; writers may use personal shorthand, formal shorthand or a computer. In the 2013 UN arrangement, up to four writers covered a meeting successively with overlapping attendance to accommodate early finishes or overruns, although increasingly one or two covered the whole meeting. Multiple writers allowed others to write up immediately.
Balance and review
Sponsored meetings can create tension between marketers wanting a product highlighted and speakers presenting relevant research without endorsing it. A suggested rule is equal page space and numbers of graphics for each speaker, while expecting debate during review.
UN summary records were originally intended for next-day publication to inform continuing deliberations. By 2013, repeated staff verification and rewriting, sometimes inserting wished-for statements, often turned records into archives rather than working documents.
Live graphic recording
Graphic recording documents a meeting visually in real time, with markers on a large paper wall or on a tablet, capturing presentations and the discussion around them. The resulting knowledge map can make connections among topics easier to see from an overview. The practice can also mean visual notes taken directly from a lecture or class. Healthcare meetings can bring together different professional backgrounds, in person or online, whose understanding needs bringing to a common level.
A graphic recorder describes projecting the emerging picture so participants can see progress, point to disputed meanings and ask for clarification without directly confronting another participant. In this practitioner's experience, the unusual, playful shared focus encourages creative ideas and common understanding, while circulating it afterwards visibly acknowledges participants' contributions. Play is a deliberate part of this approach to meetings.
Preparation and drawing
The briefing should establish whether the group already uses a metaphor, such as a ship or a mountain hike, which can provide a pre-drafted structure for participants to develop. A house can similarly represent a company foundation and departments as floors. The recorder should ask what participants will contribute, whether presentations are planned and which material matters, including whether company promotion can be omitted or sponsor content needs inclusion.
The aim is to capture main ideas live with brief wording, although some work can continue afterwards; practice improves speed. Digital drawing allows easier rearrangement than paper. Stable elements such as a keynote portrait and title can be prepared in advance, while remaining space is allocated using session duration as a guide, with extra detail possible when a talk is thin. Simple drawings should communicate the idea before time is spent on elaborate artwork.
Uses after the meeting
A board's visual record can provide a comprehensive overview for the client and be circulated to participants. Other examples include a citizen-generated neighbourhood mural documenting a commitment for planners and a visioning image showing employees' desired organisation in 2030. Drawings can be reused on social media, as sliders or in a newsletter thanking attendees. Some recorders only scribe; others also present recurring themes at the end as an external observer who has heard the conversations.