Use these important phrasal verbs to improve your communication in meetings and when doing public speaking.
Go over (something) = to examine something, usually certain topics in the meeting or presentation. It can also be used for the agenda or outline given at the beginning.
We should go over the quarterly budget during today’s meeting.
In this presentation, I’ll go over some tips for improving your mental health.
I’d like to start this meeting by going over our agenda.
Move on (to something) = transitioning to your next topic or slide. Only use "to" if you are adding a noun, such as "my next slide" or "the next part of my presentation"
Now I would like to move on.
Now I would like to move on to my next slide.
I’m going to move on to the results of our trial.
Circle back (to something) = to return to something mentioned or shown earlier. Only use "to" if you are adding a noun, such as "the slide..." or "the point".
I'd like to circle back to the slide I showed you earlier.
I'm going to circle back to the point I mentioned earlier.
Let’s circle back to the question I asked you all at the beginning of the presentation.
Point out (that...) = to mention an important detail. You can use it with a noun/detail, such as “column 3 in the chart” or you can use it with the conjunction "that" to start a new clause.
I’d like to point out column 3 in the chart where you can see…
I'd like to point out that these results were even better than we had anticipated.
I should point out that the new policy will not become effective until October 1st.
Bring up (something) = to mention a new point to discuss. The object of “bring up” is a noun representing a topic (or sometimes the word “topic”)
Before we end the meeting, I just want to bring up a detail I forgot to include earlier.
I should bring up the company vacation policy because there have been many questions about it.
Next, I would like to bring up the topic of motivation and focus on the factors that motivate people to perform their best.
Come up with (something) = to generate a plan, idea, solution etc. The object should be something that is produced from thinking.
The purpose of this meeting is to come up with ideas for our new spring marketing campaign.
We should come up with a strategy to deal with the complaints we'll receive about this problem.
Our last step is to come up with an action plan to boost sales and gain market share.
Sum up = to summarize something mentioned earlier
To sum up, we’ll change the delivery date to July 28th as per our discussion today.
To sum up, we’ve agreed on selecting the River Hotel as the venue for our seminar and we’ll arrange for a conference room there for around 50 people.
To sum up, my advice for making better decisions involves determining the risk and reward of any decision and directly comparing these two factors.
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Practice
Choose the correct prepositions needed to complete the sentences 1 - 6. Remember that some answers will require two words in the blank.
Prepositions:
back / on / over / up / out / to / with
Now I’ll move _________ my next slide.
Thank you for bringing ________ that topic. I can certainly address that.
I’d like to circle ________ the graph I showed you a few minutes ago.
Let’s start by going ______ the agenda for today.
To sum ______, our team performed well in all areas of our work and successfully reached all targets last quarter.
The goal of today’s meeting is to come _______ ideas to improve our work environment.
I should point ______ that there has been a change to the agreement with our supplier.
Answers
Now I’ll move on to my next slide.
Thank you for bringing up that topic. I can certainly address that.
I’d like to circle back to the graph I showed you a few minutes ago.
Let’s start by going over the agenda for today.
To sum up, our team performed well in all areas of our work and successfully reached all targets last quarter.
The goal of today’s meeting is to come up with ideas to improve our work environment.
I should point out that there has been a change to the agreement with our supplier.