Input and relevancy:

Tutor: Frank, you mentioned a few weeks ago that you had renovated your brother-in-law's bathroom. Think back to when he first said he wanted to renovate his bathroom. What information did you need to gather to figure out what work was required to do the job?
Frank: Well that took some time - he is a bit of a big talker. It was two months and several beers later before he put his money where his mouth is.
Tutor: Yeah, I know a few people like that. When he finally came around to becoming serious what did you do?
Frank: We went and looked at the room and I asked him what he wanted to change. Tutor: Like what?
This discussion continued between Frank and the tutor. The tutor took notes while they discussed the conversation between Frank and his brother-in-law.

Perception:

The tutor showed Frank what notes he had written and together they read through the information to pull out the important points (i.e. budget, changes needed, time to complete, outline of work to be done, etc.).

Present the information in an organized manner:

The tutor took a piece of paper and put a line down the middle. On the left side he listed the key information and on the right he listed points that related to the key topics (i.e. On the left, he wrote budget and on the right he wrote the monetary amount. On the left, he wrote work to be done and on the right, he wrote plumbing - remove old toilet and install new one, replace bathtub with a new shower stall, etc.).

Move from short-term to long-term memory:

The tutor asked Frank to look over the notes and consider if there was any other information that he would need to get in order to complete a job. Frank said yes and began to list other information he would have to get. The tutor helped Frank to organize the information into key headings on the right. When they were done - the tutor asked Frank if the key headings on the left hand page were common to all renovation jobs. He said yes. Based on this, the tutor and Frank together developed a note-taking form that could be photocopied to use with each potential contract job.