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Meeting Notes and Follow-ups: reporting verbs for who said what in a meeting

Writing meeting notes and follow-up emails is the work skill of this C1 English for IT lesson plan on reporting verbs.

Grammar
Reporting verbs with that (pointed out that), someone + to (urged us to decide), -ing (suggested using) or a preposition (objected to running), and attitude verbs like concede.
Topic
A heated architecture review at a fictional payments startup and the notes for a colleague who missed it, with words such as action item and hard stop.
Activities
A follow-up email to read, an AI-voiced call with the drama left in, self-checking drills, a Slack chat and boxes to report from; homework is a follow-up email and a recorded summary.

What's inside

  1. Chapter 1Warm-up: a meeting about meetings

    • PictureUnlock
    • Spin the wheel: talk about meetingsSpin the wheelUnlock
    • Remember the phrases: meetings and architecture decisionsVocabularyTry it
    • Match the phrases to the situationsMatchUnlock

  2. Chapter 2Reading: Lena's follow-up email

    • Read Lena's follow-up emailReal-life documentTry it
    • True or false? Check the emailTrue or falseUnlock
    • Choose the correct answer about the emailQuizUnlock

  3. Chapter 3Listening: the version with the drama

    • Listen to Lena brief DanielListeningTry it
    • Transcript, for the teacherUnlock
    • Choose the correct answer about the callQuizUnlock

  4. Chapter 4Grammar: who said what, and how

    • Study the scheme: reporting verbs and their patternsGrammar schemeTry it
    • Sort the verbs: can they take someone + to-infinitive?Sort into columnsUnlock
    • Choose the correct patternChoose the optionUnlock
    • Drag the prepositions into the gapsDrag and dropTry it
    • Fill in the gaps: -ing form or to + verbFill in the gapsUnlock
    • Choose the report that matches the speaker's attitudeQuizUnlock

  5. Chapter 5Speaking: so what did we decide?

    • Choose the right replies: Sofia missed the endChatTry it
    • Open a box and reportOpen the boxUnlock

  6. Chapter 6Homework: your own follow-up

    • Choose the correct option: Rui's first follow-up emailChoose the optionUnlock
    • Find the matching pairs: meeting phrasesMemory gameUnlock
    • Write a follow-up email after a meetingWriting, checked by the teacherUnlock
    • Record a summary for a colleague who missed a meetingSpeaking, checked by the teacherUnlock

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Vocabulary

10 words and phrases from the lesson, each with a picture and audio in edio.

+7 more with pictures and audio in the lessonMore words

  • hard stop
  • go down well
  • managed service
  • on-call rotation
  • vendor lock-in
  • proof of concept
  • pet project

Grammar: reporting verbs and their patterns

Reporting verbs take reported speech beyond said: they name what a speaker did with words, from argued and insisted to conceded, and many show how the writer sees it. Every reporting verb brings its own pattern, so learners study each one with the words that follow it, in the notes of a heated architecture review.

Reporting verbs: who said what, and how

Go beyond “said”: every reporting verb has its own pattern, and many show an attitude.

Four patterns

Some verbs take a that-clause (Tom pointed out that…), some take someone + to (Maya urged us to decide…), some -ing (Tom suggested using…) and some a preposition + -ing (Tom objected to running…). Suggest, explain and insist never take someone + to.

Four patterns

PatternVerbsExample
+ that-clauseargue, claim, point out, admit, concede, insist, acknowledge, explain, warn (someone), remind someoneTom pointed out that upgrades would land on the on-call rotation.
+ someone + to-infinitiveurge, encourage, advise, remind, warn, persuade, ask, inviteMaya urged us to decide within two weeks.
+ -ing (or a noun)suggest, recommend, propose, admit (to), deny, mentionTom suggested using a managed service.
+ preposition + -ing (or a noun)insist on, object to, apologize for, accuse someone of, blame someone for, argue for / againstTom objected to running a second cluster.

Never + someone + to-infinitive

  • suggest
  • propose
  • explain
  • insist
  • deny
  • point out
  • admit
  • mention

Suggest, recommend, insist and propose + that

These four can also take that + subject + base form: Tom suggested that we use a managed service. American English often drops should and adds no -s: Priya insisted that the test cover a full day of events.

suggest / recommend / insist / proposethat + subject(should) + base form

Tom suggested that we use a managed service.

Priya insisted that the test should cover a full day of events.

Agree to, agree with, agree on

Agree to + verb is saying yes to doing something (Priya agreed to try the managed service first), agree with is sharing an opinion (I agree with Tom on the on-call load), and agree on is deciding together: We agreed on a two-week proof of concept.

  • agree to + verb = say yes to doing something: Priya agreed to try the managed service first.
  • agree with + a person or an opinion = think the same: I agree with Tom on the on-call load.
  • agree on + a noun = decide something together: We agreed on a two-week proof of concept.

Verbs that show attitude

The verb tells readers how to take a claim. State is neutral; claim leaves room for doubt; admit accepts something bad, and concede accepts the other side's point; insist holds firm; deny says it isn't true. Neutral notes need the verb that fits, not the most dramatic one.

VerbWhat it tells the readerExample
stateneutral and formal: a plain factMaya stated that the launch date would not change.
claimthe speaker says it's true, but the writer isn't sureThe vendor claims its service never loses a message.
admitthe speaker accepts something bad, often about themselvesPriya admitted that she'd been a bit stubborn.
concedethe speaker accepts a point from the other sidePriya conceded that a managed service would cut the on-call load.
insistthe speaker says it firmly, against disagreementTom insisted that a second cluster meant twice the alerts.
denythe speaker says it isn't trueTom denied being against Kafka.

Three small rules

Not goes before to: Tom warned us not to forget the cost of people's time. After a past reporting verb, will usually becomes would, but a fact that is still true can stay present: Priya pointed out that the ledger needs strict ordering.

Three small rules

Put not before to: Tom warned us not to forget the cost of people's time. After a past reporting verb, “will” usually becomes would, but a fact that is still true can stay in the present: Priya pointed out that the ledger needs strict ordering. After suggest / insist that, American English often drops “should”: that the test cover (no -s).

Typical mistakes

  • Tom suggested us to use a managed service.

    Tom suggested using a managed service.

    suggest + -ing or suggest that…; never + to-infinitive, with or without someone

  • Lena recommended to encrypt every topic.

    Lena recommended encrypting every topic.

    recommend + -ing, or recommend that we…

  • Priya insisted to test replay first.

    Priya insisted on testing replay first.

    insist on + -ing, or insist that…

  • Tom denied to be against Kafka.

    Tom denied being against Kafka.

    deny + -ing, or deny that…

More typical mistakes

  • Priya explained me why ordering matters.

    Priya explained to me why ordering matters.

    explain something to someone

  • Tom objected to run a second cluster.

    Tom objected to running a second cluster.

    here “to” is a preposition, so + -ing

  • Rui proposed us to run a two-week test.

    Rui proposed running a two-week test.

    propose + -ing, or propose that we…

  • Tom accused Priya for wanting a pet project.

    Tom accused Priya of wanting a pet project.

    accuse someone of; blame someone for

More lessons on this grammar: Reported speech lessons and exercises

Try the reporting verb patterns exercises

Try them yourself: these are the same exercises your students do in edio.

More exercises

What's in the lesson

  • 11 auto-checked exercises
  • 3 games
  • 2 teacher-checked tasks
  • 1 real-life document
  • 1 grammar scheme
  • 1 set of word cards
  • 1 audio clip
  • 1 picture
  • 1 transcript

The main objectives of this lesson are to:

  • report suggestions and objections with the right pattern: Tom suggested using a managed service. Tom objected to running a second cluster.
  • show a speaker's attitude through the verb: Priya conceded that…, The vendor claims…, Tom denied being against Kafka.
  • tell agree to, agree with and agree on apart: We agreed on a two-week proof of concept.
  • write a follow-up email with a one-line summary, who argued what, the decisions and action items with owners and deadlines

Lesson 12 of English for IT C1 · Across the Company closes the unit Docs, metrics and meetings, which goes from READMEs and dashboards to follow-ups. Its suggest + -ing builds on the I'd suggest + -ing of lesson 2's code review comments, and unit 5 moves on to retros, interviews and AI. Notes for someone who missed a meeting must show who said what and how firmly, which is the job reporting verbs do.

Students spin a wheel about notes, missed meetings and disagreements, learn ten phrases with pictures and audio, from action item and hard stop to vendor lock-in and pet project, and match them to situations. They read Lena's follow-up email after an architecture review, with true-or-false and multiple-choice checks, then hear Lena give Daniel the version with the drama in an AI-voiced call. The grammar chapter has the scheme and five self-checking exercises, among them a sort of verbs that can take someone + to. In the speaking chapter, students tell Sofia what was decided in a Slack chat, then open boxes and report meetings and debates of their own.

Homework begins with a gap-fill on Rui's first follow-up email and a memory match of meeting phrases, which check themselves. Students then write a follow-up email after a meeting of their own and record a summary for a colleague who missed one, two pieces the teacher reviews.

Grammar:
reporting verbs · verb patterns
Topic:
meetings · follow-up emails · architecture decisions

Teaching tips

  • Stage a short mock meeting first: three learners argue a small decision while the rest take notes, then everyone reports it with argued for, conceded that and agreed on.
  • Compare the email with the call: after the listening, learners list what Lena told Daniel but left out of her email, and discuss why neutral notes leave it out.
  • Ban said for one round: pairs retell Lena's call to Daniel line by line, each time with a different reporting verb, and the group checks every pattern against the scheme.
  • For in-company groups, bring last week's real meeting: each learner drafts the action items with owners and deadlines, then the group compares versions and agrees on one.

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The whole course: English for IT C1 · Across the Company

15 lessons at C1 for people who build software, in American English, with definitions instead of translations. The people of Kestrel Cloud, a fictional payments startup, write updates, reviews, RFCs and postmortems, explain tech to non-tech colleagues and negotiate scope. Real cases include the CrowdStrike outage and the xz backdoor.See the course

  1. Unit 1 Talking to the team

    async updates, code review and plain explanations: the future perfect, hedging, cleft sentences

    1. Lesson 1Async Stand-ups: Status Updates People Can Act OnFuture forms for status updates
    2. Lesson 2Code Review Without the DramaHedging in code review
    3. Lesson 3Explaining Tech to Non-Tech PeopleIt-clefts and wh-clefts

  2. Unit 2 Shipping and incidents

    estimates, releases and outages: conditionals without if, phrasal verbs, modal perfects

    1. Lesson 4Estimates, Deadlines and Saying No (Politely)Conditionals without if and mixed conditionals
    2. Lesson 5Release Day: Rolling Out and Rolling BackPhrasal verbs and their noun forms
    3. Lesson 6Incident! Learning from the CrowdStrike OutageModal perfects and narrative tenses

  3. Unit 3 Security and design

    advisories, trade-offs and RFCs: passive reporting structures, concession and contrast, nominalization

    1. Lesson 7Security Advisory: The xz BackdoorPassive reporting structures
    2. Lesson 8System Design: Every Choice Has a CostConcession, contrast and modified comparatives
    3. Lesson 9Writing an RFC That Gets ApprovedNominalization and formal register

  4. Unit 4 Docs, metrics and meetings

    READMEs, dashboards and follow-ups: participle clauses, describing trends, reporting verbs

    1. Lesson 10Docs People Actually ReadReduced relative clauses and participle clauses
    2. Lesson 11Metrics, Dashboards and SLOsPrepositions with numbers, trends and approximation
    3. Lesson 12 · you're hereMeeting Notes and Follow-upsReporting verbs and their patterns

  5. Unit 5 Retros, interviews and AI

    looking back and ahead: wish and would rather, inversion, formal obligation and permission

    1. Lesson 13The Retro: What Went Wrong This QuarterWish, would rather and it's high time
    2. Lesson 14The Interview: Selling Your AchievementsInversion for emphasis
    3. Lesson 15AI at Work: Writing the Team's RulesObligation and permission in formal rules

Questions about this lesson

How do you write meeting minutes?
Write meeting minutes in the order readers need: summary, positions, decisions, actions. Open with a one-line summary, report who argued what with precise verbs (Priya argued for a dedicated cluster; Tom objected to running a second cluster), state each decision with agreed on, and list action items with owners and deadlines. Keep the tone neutral: report what people said, not what you think of them.
What's the difference between meeting minutes and meeting notes?
Meeting minutes are the formal record of what a meeting decided, often kept for a board or a committee, while meeting notes are a lighter summary for the team. Both need the same core: what was decided, who does what and by when. In many tech teams, the notes go out as a follow-up email that opens with the short version: Short version: no final decision yet, but we have a plan.
How do you write a follow-up email after a meeting?
Write a follow-up email for the person who missed the meeting: a subject line that names the topic, a one-line summary, who argued what, the decisions and the action items. The email in Meeting Notes and Follow-ups, a C1 lesson on edio.ai, makes a good model, from the subject (Ledger v2 event queue: summary, decisions and action items) to the close: Shout if I got anything wrong.
Which reporting verbs show the speaker's attitude?
Verbs such as claim, admit, concede, insist and deny show attitude, while state stays neutral. Claim leaves room for doubt (The vendor claims its service never loses a message); admit accepts something bad; concede accepts the other side's point; insist holds firm; deny rejects what was said. In neutral notes, pick the mildest accurate verb. A quiz in Meeting Notes and Follow-ups on edio.ai matches reports to attitudes.
What should a meeting notes template include?
A meeting notes template needs four headings: summary, who argued what, decisions, action items. Put the topic and the date at the top, and write each action item as owner, task and deadline: Priya: test plan for ordering and replay, by Wednesday. End with the next step, such as who signs off on the final decision and when.
Is it "objected to run" or "objected to running"?
It's objected to running, because this to is a preposition, and a preposition takes -ing or a noun. So: Tom objected to running a second cluster. Other reporting verbs work the same way with their own prepositions: insisted on testing, apologized for interrupting, accused someone of wanting, blamed someone for. A quick test: if a noun fits after to (objected to the plan), the verb after it takes -ing.
What's the difference between agree to, agree with and agree on?
The preposition changes what agree means. Agree to + verb means saying yes to doing something: Daniel agreed to present Rui's numbers to Graham. Agree with + a person or an opinion means thinking the same: Lena agrees with Tom on the on-call question. Agree on + a noun means deciding together: The team agreed on two clear pass criteria for the test. Meeting Notes and Follow-ups, a C1 lesson on edio.ai, drills all three.
How do you write action items in meeting notes?
Write each action item as an owner, a task and a deadline, one per line. For example: Tom: the managed service running in staging, by Friday. Rui: cost comparison of both options, by Thursday. An action item is a task someone must finish after the meeting, so a line with no owner or no date isn't one yet. If you assign one to someone who wasn't there, say so kindly: Maya volunteered you, sorry.
What phrases can you use in a follow-up email after a meeting?
Use a set phrase for each part of the email: Here's my summary of today's architecture review to open, Short version: no final decision yet, but we have a plan for the gist, and Shout if I got anything wrong to close. In between: She argued for…, He suggested using…, She conceded that…, We agreed on… All of them appear in the follow-up email students read in Meeting Notes and Follow-ups on edio.ai.
How do you practice meeting language with an in-company group?
Use the group's own meetings as material: after a real stand-up or planning session, each learner writes three lines of notes with three different reporting verbs, and the group checks every pattern. Then one learner briefs a colleague who missed it, aloud, with the decisions and the action items. The open boxes in this lesson add prompts such as reporting a technical debate or the best advice a senior colleague gave you.
What's good homework for practicing follow-up emails?
Good homework is a follow-up email after a meeting the learner attended: a subject line, a one-line summary, who argued what with five different reporting verbs, the decisions with agreed on or agreed to, and action items with owners and deadlines. In Meeting Notes and Follow-ups on edio.ai, students write that email and record a summary for an absent colleague, after a gap-fill and a memory match that check themselves.
Are there interactive exercises for the language of meeting notes?
Yes: self-checking drills and chats test each verb pattern as learners go. This page plays four parts of Meeting Notes and Follow-ups, a C1 lesson on edio.ai, without an account: Lena's follow-up email, her call with Daniel, a drag-and-drop with the prepositions after verbs like insist, object and apologize, and a Slack chat in which students tell a colleague who left early what was decided. The other exercises are locked.
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