How to talk about WRITING at work - Formal and informal business English lesson (Ep.58)

Today we discover the essential vocabulary professionals need to confidently talk about writing in English, both informal phrases like jot down, take down, and type up, and formal workplace language such as record, document, and the minutes. Learn how native speakers really describe note-taking, meeting records, and written communication at work, along with clear pronunciation tips and practical examples you can start using immediately. Perfect for international professionals who want to sound more natural, more accurate, and more professional in English.

If you speak English at work and want to sound more native and natural when talking to colleagues, customers, or clients, then I hope that the vocabulary, grammar, and communication tips in today's episode will be useful for you. 

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Also, if you're studying for the IELTS, TOEFL, or Cambridge English tests and exams then you might find some of the vocabulary in this episode really useful.

This podcast is all about helping you to communicate better, in English, at work. I work with international English speakers from around the world who use English, at work, as a second or third language and I hope that I can bring some of the ideas, vocabulary, and grammar, from those sessions, to you in this podcast.

Don’t forget that my full time job is helping international professionals who use English at work to improve their communication skills. So, if you need English to do your job but don’t speak it natively then maybe we can work together to help you to achieve your language goals. 

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Transcript

Welcome back to the breakout business English podcast. My name is Chris. I'm a business English and communication coach. And I've personally worked with over 1,000 international professionals, likely just like you, to improve the way that they communicate at work, in English. Thank you so much for listening and as always for your time. I know how valuable it is and our topic today is writing. Or more specifically, how to talk about writing in English. I think that I speak for most people when I say that the vast majority of the writing I do for work is done on my computer. I sit here at my desk and type on a keyboard for most of the day. However, There are some occasions when I still need to use a pen and paper. To quote a line from the James Bond movie Skyfall from back in 2012, sometimes the old ways are still the best. And I know that for a lot of people, writing information down is a big part of their job. Maybe not quoting James Bond movies, but definitely writing things down. I remember having a manager a few years ago who hated when people would bring laptops into meetings. He would far rather everyone used a notepad to keep notes. Equally, if you're a student, I think that these days it's far more common to use a laptop in lectures. However, when I was a student back in 2010, that's when I graduated, I remember being the only person bringing a laptop into lectures. In fact, I only tried it for a couple of lectures. Because I was the only person I think I annoyed everyone. And I definitely got a few stares.You know, A keyboard doesn't feel that loud, but when you're in a lecture theatre with Maybe a hundred other people. And you're the only one using a keyboard?Yeah, that sounds pretty loud. I worked in sales at the time. And I sold computers and other IT equipment.So it was natural for me to buy a small laptop for university. But. For everyone else, with their pens and paper, this was just a distraction.So, today we're going to talk about writing, about pens and paper and the art of effectively capturing your ideas on paper. We're going to split today's podcast into two sections. We'll start with some informal, natural and native sounding ways to talk about writing things down, Then we'll discuss some more formal vocabulary that you might hear from time to time. Especially when in more serious meetings. Let's start by listening to some natural and native sounding informal ways to talk about writing things down. I'll type up these notes and email them over to you. I'll type up these notes and email them over to you. Could you just jot this down for me, please? Could you just jot this down for me please? If I read you the phone number, can you take it down? If I read you the phone number, Can you take it down?So I talked at the very beginning of the podcast about typing. And I think that in a lot of professional situations that Even if you take notes by hand, then before you send them to people, you'll likely need to type them into a document on your computer. Into a word processor, we might say. It might be a little strange if your colleague asks you to send them your notes from a meeting If you just take a photo of what you wrote, you take a photo of your handwritten notes. It's far more common to create a final version. A typed document on your computer that organizes and clearly communicates the handwritten notes that you took during a meeting. Or maybe during an event. In the first example, we heard, I'll just type up these notes and email them over to you. I'll just type up these notes and email them over to you.So if anyone asks you to type something up, They're asking you to take some handwritten notes, then go back to your desk and create a nice, modern, typed document from those notes. Occasionally, you can use it to say you've taken Quick, rough, informal notes on your computer. Maybe they're not organized. You just typed everything as you heard it and you want to, again, turn them into a nice, more formal, more structured document that would be appropriate to send to a colleague. I should add that in the past we used the phrase "to write up" As in, that was a long meeting. I'll write up my notes and send you a summary. I'll write up my notes and send you a summary. While this is still used and still a useful phrase, it's not so common anymore. To write up a set of notes means to make a formal and final version of them. Perhaps with some nicer formatting, better organized, and importantly, without any mistakes. However, Since those final versions of documents became almost entirely typed on a computer, we don't use that phrase so much anymore.So writing up notes has really been replaced by typing up notes. Next, what do I mean if I ask you to jot something down? To jot something down. That's J-O-T, jot. And importantly, what's the difference between jotting something down and writing something down? In the second example, we heard, Could you just jot this down for me, please? Could you just jot this down for me, please? To jot something. It simply means to write something quickly. This is a word. That is almost always used as a phrasal verb. With the preposition down.So, that's the same preposition that we add to write to make its phrasal verb, write down. But the added feeling that we get from jot is that the writing is quick, and maybe rough. It's not... Apple note-taking. Not the kind that you might put into a nice notebook and keep on a shelf for a long period of time. Instead, This is a note that might be written on the back of an envelope. Or A scrap piece of paper, maybe. We often jot things down like phone numbers or measurements. I guess there are a lot of different numbers that you might need to write down quickly on any piece of paper that you can grab just quickly and easily. Incidentally. A few weeks ago, I gave you the phrase back of the envelope. Maybe you did some back of the envelope math there. And that's another place you could use jot. You could say you jotted down some back of the envelope math, which was... Quick. Informal math so that you could work something out. And if you need to jot lots of things down in English when you're at work, then maybe we can work together. My full-time job is helping international professionals who use English at work to improve their communication skills.So, if you need English to do your job, but you don't speak it natively, then it would be great to meet you. If you'd like to book some time to meet with me the one-to-one video calls, just you and me, then you can go to breakoutbusinessenglish.com. That's the title of the podcast, breakoutbusinessenglish.com and find out more. Starting on our very first call, we can focus on the specific opportunities that you personally have to improve your English and communication skills. And the mistakes that you make most often or cause the biggest problems with your communication. And right now you can use the code PODCAST30, that's PODCAST30, at checkout to get a 30% discount off your first booking of 30, 45 or 60 minutes.Sometimes my calendar gets a little busy, so if you have trouble finding a time that works for you, then you can always send me a message through the contact page on the website and ask if I have any time to fit you in. As I mentioned at the beginning, and as I mention every week on this podcast, I've worked with well over 1,000 non-native English-speaking professionals, from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders, to help them achieve their goals, and I look forward to meeting you. Okay, let's move on to discussing some more formal vocabulary. There are lots of situations when you might want to talk about formally writing things down at work. Often this is when you're in a meeting and need to talk about writing things down in that more formal setting. Or perhaps it's just that the topic of conversation is a lot more serious and you want to use the kind of vocabulary that is appropriate for the topic that you're speaking about. Let's listen now. To some natural and native ways to sound more formal. When you're talking about writing things down in that more formal context. I just want to make a record of this. I just want to make a record of this. Dave will be recording our discussion today in the minutes. Dave will be recording. Our discussion today in the minutes. We should document this conversation in case we need to refer back to it. We should document this conversation in case we need to refer... Back to it. Document is an interesting word. You likely already know this and use it as a noun. A document is a piece of paper with information written on it. You might know this as the name for files made in the popular word processing software, Microsoft Word, or maybe Google Docs. Docs there being short for document. I think we've all got computers full of files that end in .doc that. We often use the noun document when talking about official documents. The kind that you might be asked to show to prove where you live or maybe where you're from. If you're. A flight in an airport, you'll likely need a copy of Maybe your boarding pass printed off from a computer? That's a document? And of course your passport is one of the more formal and important documents that you likely have. However, We can use this as a verb. In the third example, we heard we should document this conversation in case we need to refer back to it. We should document this conversation in case we need to refer back. To it. As a verb, document means simply to write things down in a way that creates a document. You might notice there, there's a slightly different pronunciation that I use on the verb document.So the M-E-N part, especially that vowel sound. The E has a longer Sound and a lot more space in document. Whereas the noun, that E sound gets squashed down and this becomes document. That's more like a schwa vowel. If you know the pronunciation term, a schwa vowel, it's the most common sound in the English language. And that's what we use with the noun document. Document.So if you keep a journal.You are likely documenting your ideas. Documenting can be used to talk about taking Photos? Maybe recording videos or really any other way of making a record. Or a document of something that happened. Let's talk now about another word that has a couple of meanings, and that is the verb to record. That's R-E-C-O RD. In the second example, we heard, Dave will be recording our discussion today in the minutes. Dave will be recording our discussion today in the minutes. And in the first example, We heard, I just want to make a record of this. I just want to make a record of this. I think that a lot of people are surprised when they hear this word in this context because it's so well known in another context. Usually, when we say that we're recording something, we mean that we're either making an audio or a video recording. However, this word has been used since the mid 14th century.So that's around 700 years ago. And we definitely weren't making videos or audio recordings back then.So the original meaning of, was that something is written down. So that it can be remembered. And it still has this meaning today. Alongside the new meanings that we give it. In fact, this word comes to us through Old French. And has its origins in ancient Latin.So this is another word that we can thank the Romans for bringing us. So, to record something. Can be used usually in formal contexts to say that you're going to write something down. And if you create a document that shows what was said in a meeting, then this document can be called a record of that conversation. A record of that conversation. Indeed, one more context here, one more way to think about this is maybe your birth certificate. I, well, not I, but my wife gave birth to our baby girl in February this year. And at the time, someone recorded the weight of the baby. They recorded the exact time that the baby was born. And now we have a birth certificate. That birth certificate is a record of her birth. A record of her birth. And I've definitely mentioned this word before in another episode of the podcast, but I just want to double check that everyone understands it. We had in the second example, the word MINUTES. As in... Dave will be recording our discussion today in the minutes. Dave will be recording our discussion today in the minutes. In this context, we are of course not talking about time. We're not talking about seconds, minutes and hours, but instead we're talking about the formal, written and agreed record of what was said in a meeting. In many meetings, especially important ones, you will often find a person whose job it is to take the minutes and record exactly what was said in a meeting. Maybe you've even done that yourself. That's been your duty in a meeting. If you've ever been in a disciplinary meeting for a member of staff, maybe with someone from your HR department present, then you've likely been told that someone is taking minutes. That's the verb that we use with the noun minutes. We can talk about writing minutes, but it's most common to say that someone takes the minutes. Don't forget that if you would like to discuss any of the ideas, vocabulary or grammar, etc. In today's episode or work on your English communication in general, then you can book a session with me to work on your English skills by going to www.breakoutbusinessenglish.com. That's the title of the podcast, Breakout Business English Podcast. Dot com or you can click on the link in the show notes. And use the code PODCAST30, that's PODCAST30, at checkout to get a 30% discount off your first booking of 30, 45 or 60 minutes, whichever is best for you. I've worked with well over 1,000 non-native English-speaking professionals, from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders, indeed from governments that you've likely heard of, to help them achieve their English communication goals, and I look forward to meeting you. Equally, if you're preparing for anything, maybe you're preparing for a job interview. I spend about 30% of my time helping people prepare for job interviews these days, presentations, anything like that. Let me know and we can definitely help you work towards putting in a great performance in that situation. Between episodes of the podcast, you can get videos every couple of days on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Just search for Breakout Business English. Actually, just this morning, I put out a brand new YouTube video Just over 10 minutes, I believe, explaining something called the rule of threes. This is a fantastic communication idea to make sure that you are clear, to make sure that you are understood, even if you make mistakes. Even if the people you're speaking to are maybe not paying attention, the rule of threes can help you out with that. And that's a new YouTube video that was released this morning. And if there's a topic that you'd like to hear me talk about on the podcast, then I'd be excited to hear your ideas. Leave me a message or a comment on one of my YouTube videos and I look forward to hearing from you. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, then I invite you to leave a review. Every review really helps me out and helps to push the podcast to new listeners and to grow the show. If you found the podcast useful, and you think that there are some valuable things in here, then feel free to write a couple of kind words or just leave a star review of three or four or five stars, whatever you think is appropriate. And I thank you for that in advance. A review on Apple Podcasts is another great place to request a topic for a future episode of the show. I should really check to see how many reviews I have. I have eight. I have eight reviews right now on Apple Podcasts. I'm pretty sure one of those is from me.So if you do have the time to click one of those star ratings, one of those buttons on Apple Podcasts, that really would be valuable for me. And right now you'd be contributing. I don't know, what's that? 15% of all of my reviews there.So that would be great. That is it for today. Thank you so much for listening as always and for your time. I know how valuable it is and I really appreciate and respect your choice to spend some of it with this podcast. I hope you have a great week. And I'll talk to you again next time, next Wednesday. On the Breakout Business English podcast.