Collaborative writing, or collabwriting is a method of group work that takes place in the workplace and in the classroom. Researchers expand the idea of collaborative writing beyond groups working together to complete a writing task. Collaboration can be defined as individuals communicating, whether orally or in written form, to plan, draft, and revise a document. The success of collaboration in group work is often incumbent upon a group's agreed upon plan of action. At times, success in collaborative writing is hindered by a group's failure to adequately communicate their desired strategies.
Definition
Collaborative writing refers to a distributed process of labor involving writing, resulting in the co-authorship of a text by more than one writer.
[Sharples, M., Goodlet, J. S., Beck, E. E., Wood, C. C., Easterbook, S M., & Plowman, L. (1993). Research issues in the study of computer supported collaborative writing. In M. Sharples (ed.) Computer supported collaborative writing. London: Springer, 9-28.]
* Interaction between participants throughout the entire
writing process
A writing process describes a sequence of physical and mental actions that people take as they produce any kind of text. These actions nearly universally involve tools for physical or digital inscription: e.g., chisels, pencils, brushes, chalk, di ...
. Whether it be brainstorming, writing a draft of the project, or reviewing.
* Shared power among participants. Everyone included in the project has the power to make decisions and no group member is in charge of all the text produced.
* The collaborative production of one single and specific text.
Collaborative writing is often the norm, rather than the exception, in many academic and workplace settings. Some theories of collaborative writing suggest that in the writing process, all participants are to have equal responsibilities. In this view, all sections of the text should be split up to ensure the workload is evenly displaced, all participants work together and interact throughout the writing process, everyone contributes to planning, generating ideas, making structure of text, editing, and the revision process. Other theories of collaborative writing propose a more flexible understanding of the workflow that accounts for varying contribution levels depending on the expertise, interest, and role of participants.
History
In
Rhetoric, Composition, and Writing Studies, scholars have demonstrated how
collaborative learning
Collaborative learning is a situation in which two or more people learn or attempt to learn something together.Dillenbourg, P. (1999). Collaborative Learning: Cognitive and Computational Approaches. Advances in Learning and Instruction Series. New ...
in U.S. contexts has been informed by
John Dewey’s progressivism in the early twentieth century. Collaboration and collaborative writing gained traction in these fields in the 1980s especially, as researchers reacted to
poststructuralist
Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critique ...
theories related to
social constructionism
Social constructionism is a theory in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory which proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of pure observation of said reality. The theory ...
and began theorizing more social views of writing.
Types
Collaborative writing processes are extremely
context-dependent
In formal language theory, a context-sensitive language is a language that can be defined by a context-sensitive grammar (and equivalently by a noncontracting grammar). Context-sensitive is one of the four types of grammars in the Chomsky hierarc ...
. In scholarship, on both academic and business writing, multiple terminologies have been identified for collaborative writing processes, including:
* Single Author writing or Collegial: one person is leading, they compile the group ideas and do the writing.
* Sequential writing: each person adds their task work then passes it on for the next person to edit freely.
* Horizontal Division or Parallel writing: each person does one part of the whole project and then one member compiles it.
* Stratified Division writing: each person plays a role in the composition process of a project due to talents.
* Reactive or reciprocal writing: group all works on and writes the project at the same time, adjusting and commenting on everyone's work.
Uses of collaborative writing
Collaborative writing may be used in instances where a workload would be overwhelming for one person to produce. Therefore, ownership of the text is from the group that produced it and not just one person.
In 2012,
Bill Tomlinson and colleagues provided the first extensive discussion of the experiential aspects of large-scale collaborative research by documenting the collaborative development process of an
academic paper
Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally publ ...
written by a collective of thirty authors; their work identifies key tools and techniques that would be necessary or useful to the writing process, and to discover, negotiate, and document issues in massively authored scholarship.
In 2016, Researchers Joy Robinson, Lisa Dusenberry, and Lawrence M. Halcyon conducted a case study investigating the productivity of a team of writers who utilized the practice of interlaced collaborative writing and found that the team was able to produce a published article, a two-year
grant proposal, a digital and physical poster, a midterm research report, and conference presentation over the course of three years. The writers used virtual tools such as
Google Hangouts
Google Hangouts is a discontinued cross-platform instant messaging service developed by Google. It originally was a feature of Google+, becoming a standalone product in 2013, when Google also began integrating features from Google+ Messenger an ...
' voice feature for group check-ins, to hold group discussions, and to write as a group.
Google Docs
Google Docs is an online word processor included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite offered by Google, which also includes: Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Drawings, Google Forms, Google Sites and Google Keep. Google Do ...
was used to allow each team member to edit and add writing to a shared document throughout the writing process.
Another motive for using collaborative writing is to increase the quality of the completed project by combining the expertise of multiple individuals and for allowing feedback from diverse perspectives. Collaborative writing has been proven to be an effective method of improving an individual's writing skills, regardless of their proficiency level, by allowing them to collaborate and learn from one or more partners and participate in the co-ownership of a written piece. Instructors may utilize this technique to create more student-centered and collaborative learning environments, or they may use it themselves to cross-collaborate with other academics to produce publishable works.
Views on collaborative writing
Linguist Neomy Storch, in a 2005 Australian study, discovered that reflections pertaining to collaborative writing in regards to
second language
A person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native language (first language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later. A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a fo ...
learners in the classroom were overwhelmingly positive. The study compared the nature of collaborative writing of individual work versus that of group work, and Storch found that although paired groups wrote shorter texts, their work was more complex and accurate compared to individual works. The study consisted of 23 total participants: 5 doing individual work and 18 working in pairs. The pairs consisted of two male pairs, four female pairs and three male/female pairs. Post-assignment interviews revealed that the majority of students (16) yielded positive opinions about group work, but two students felt that group work is best reserved for oral activities and discussions rather than writing assignments.
The majority of interviewees gave positive reviews, but one argued that group work was difficult when it came to criticizing another's work and another argued that there is a power imbalance when writing is based on ability. The two students who were stark opponents of collaborative writing revealed that it was hard to concentrate on their work and they were embarrassed by their supposedly poor
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
skills.
Jason Palmeri found that when it came to inter-professional collaboration, most of the issues stemmed from miscommunication. In differing disciplines, one person may have a level of expertise and understanding that is foreign to another. Palmeri's study provided the example of a nurse and an attorney having different areas of expertise, so therefore they had differing understanding of concepts and even the meaning of the same words. While much of the issues resulted from miscommunication, the study found that some nurse consultants resisted change in terms of altering their writing style to fit the understanding or standards of the attorneys.
Collaborative writing as an educational tool
Collaborative writing is a technique used by educators to improve the writing skills of students. This method can assist writers of all ages and levels of proficiency to produce texts of a higher quality with students having a generally positive view of the assignment. Typically, collaborative writing in a classroom setting differs from cooperation or peer-review in that it is defined by the co-authorship of the participants, meaning the students contribute equally at all stages of the writing process to produce the final project. Collaborative writing requires cooperation, which causes more language related episodes through assigning tasks, comparing ideas, and revising the text. It typically results in more accurate language usage, and it can even improve oral fluency and confidence in speaking in the target language. Students also feel higher levels of motivation to complete the task due to the group interaction.
Scholarly research featuring the practice of collaborative writing in educational settings began in the early 1900s with a focus specifically on language acquisition. Researchers found that the language exchanges used by participants to generate the texts were beneficial, and they called these language related episodes. This is because learners could socialize in their first language or the language they were learning while deliberating ideas, justifying linguistic choices, and negotiating meaning, allowing for students to learn from each other and forcing them to analyze choices. While worksheets seem to focus on linguistical structures, such as conjugation, collaborative writing focuses on the lexis. The co-creative nature of this knowledge allows for it to be maintained. Even if parts of the conversing is in the students' primary language during these group interactions, evidence shows that the actions are transactional and brief with a focus on bettering the target language.
The grouping of the students is significant. Larger groups seem to produce better texts and have more language related episodes. Students in groups of low proficiency will have fewer language related episodes and focus on meaning, while students with higher proficiency will have more language related episodes and focus on grammar. It is still beneficial to pair students of high proficiency with students of low proficiency because they will have more language related episodes. However, it is most effective to pair or group students with similar proficiency levels because they will engage more with each other and with the collaborative writing task. Teacher-chosen groups and student-chosen groups seem to result in the same collaborative patterns, but teacher chosen groups will have more language related episodes and result in a higher quality of final text. Following that, students collaborate the most in face-to-face settings opposed to using to online formats with collaborative tools. Surprisingly, one study shows that even silent group members who do not contribute to the discussion or the task completion still benefit from collaborative writing through observing the exchanges from their peers.
Some students may prefer individual writing since the process is more linear and less time-consuming with fewer opportunities for distractions. A student's view on collaborative writing may also be shaped by their experiences. If there are more transactional experiences, such as adding or deleting text with no group deliberation, students will likely prefer to work alone. Likewise, the final text will typically lack synthesis because there was not a collaborative relationship within the group. Generally, higher amounts of group discussion results in a more positive view on the collaborative writing assignment. Students may still chose not to collaborate or contribute to the task due to a lack of confidence in their language skills and may dislike collaborative writing as a result.
Collaborative Writing in the Workplace
A study conducted by Stephen Bremner, an English professor at the
City University of Hong Kong
City University of Hong Kong (CityU) is a world-class public research university located in Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1984 as City Polytechnic of Hong Kong and became a fully accredited university in 1994. Currently, CityU is ...
, investigated eight business communication textbooks to test the depth in which they provided students with a knowledge of collaborative writing in the workplace and how to execute those processes. The study found that, generally, textbooks highlighted the role of collaborative writing in the workplace. Textbooks listed the pros of collaborative writing such as saving time, more superior documents due to each individual's strengths and specialized knowledge, a well-crafted message due to team work, balanced abilities, and an interest in accomplishing a common goal.
The article claimed that the textbooks examined gave students a basic knowledge of collaboration in the workplace, but they also lacked the information that showed students the realities of collaborative writing in the workplace with few activities presented in the textbooks that mirror collaborative activities in the workplace. Much of the activities that featured group work seemed more idealistic rather than based in reality, where the writing process occurred in only controlled and orderly environments. Bremner also found that group work in the classroom also did not properly simulate the power hierarchies present in the workplace.
Jason Palmeri found that when it came to inter-professional collaboration, most of the issues stemmed from miscommunication. In differing disciplines, one person may have a level of expertise and understanding that is foreign to another. The article gave the example of a nurse and an attorney having different areas of expertise, so therefore they had differing understanding of concepts and even the meaning of the same words. While much of the issues resulted from miscommunication, the article claimed that some nurse consultants resisted change in terms of altering their writing style to fit the understanding or standards of the attorneys.
Tools
* ''Atlas'' is a wiki-like git-managed authoring platform from
O'Reilly Media
O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books, produces tech conferences, and provides an online learning platform. Its distinctive brand features a woodcut of an ...
that is based on the
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
web-based Git repository manager (
version control system
In software engineering, version control (also known as revision control, source control, or source code management) is a class of systems responsible for managing changes to computer programs, documents, large web sites, or other collections o ...
) "
GitLab
GitLab Inc. is an open-core company that operates GitLab, a DevOps software package which can develop, secure, and operate software. The open source software project was created by Ukrainian developer Dmitriy Zaporozhets and Dutch developer S ...
".
* For collaborative code-writing mostly
revision control
In software engineering, version control (also known as revision control, source control, or source code management) is a class of systems responsible for managing changes to computer programs, documents, large web sites, or other collections o ...
systems like Team Foundation Version Control (used in
Team Foundation Server
Azure DevOps Server (formerly Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Visual Studio Team System (VSTS)) is a Microsoft product that provides version control (either with Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) or Git), reporting, requirements managemen ...
) and
Git
Git () is a distributed version control system: tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development. Its goals include speed, data in ...
(used in
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...
,
Bitbucket
Bitbucket is a Git-based source code repository hosting service owned by Atlassian. Bitbucket offers both commercial plans and free accounts with an unlimited number of private repositories.
Services Bitbucket Cloud
Bitbucket Cloud (previ ...
, GitLab and
CodePlex
CodePlex was a forge website by Microsoft. While it was active, it allowed shared development of open-source software.
Its features included wiki pages, source control based on Mercurial, TFVC, Subversion or Git, discussion forums, issue trac ...
) are used in parallel writing.
*
Collaborative real-time editor
A collaborative real-time editor is a type of collaborative software or web application which enables real-time collaborative editing, simultaneous editing, or live editing of the same digital document, computer file or cloud-stored data – suc ...
s like
Etherpad
Etherpad (previously known as EtherPad) is an open-source, web-based collaborative real-time editor, allowing authors to simultaneously edit a text document, and see all of the participants' edits in real-time, with the ability to display each ...
,
Hackpad Hackpad was a web-based collaborative real-time text editor forked from Etherpad.
It was used as the company wikis by multiple prominent startups of the 2010s, such as Airbnb, Stripe, and Upworthy.
In April 2014, Hackpad was acquired by Dropbo ...
,
Google Docs
Google Docs is an online word processor included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite offered by Google, which also includes: Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Drawings, Google Forms, Google Sites and Google Keep. Google Do ...
,
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
, and
Authorea
Authorea is an online collaborative writing tool that allows researchers to write, cite, collaborate, host data and publish. It has been described as "Google Docs for Scientists".
It has been owned by the commercial publishing company Wiley throug ...
.
* Online platforms mainly focused on
collaborative fiction
Collaborative fiction is a form of writing by a group of authors who share creative control of a story.
Collaborative fiction can occur for commercial gain, as part of education, or recreationally – many collaboratively written works have bee ...
that allow other users to continue a story's narrative such as
Protagonize and
Ficly.
*
Wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
s like
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
and
Wikia
Fandom (formerly known as Wikicities before 2007 and later Wikia before 2019) is a wiki hosting service that hosts wikis mainly on entertainment topics (i.e. video games, TV series, movies, entertainers, etc.). Its domain is operated by Fandom, ...
Authorship
An author acquires copyright if their work meets certain criteria. In the case of works created by one person, typically, the first owner of a copyright in that work is the person who created the work, i.e. the author. But, when more than one person creates the work in collaboration with one another, then a case of
joint authorship Joint authorship of a copyrightable work is when two or more persons contribute enough to the work to be the author of that work. In the case of joint authorship, the authors share the copyright in the work with each other.
International conventio ...
can be made provided some criteria are met.
See also
*
Collaborative editing __NOTOC__
Collaborative editing is the process of multiple people editing the same document simultaneously. This technique may engage expertise from different disciplines, and potentially improve the quality of documents and increase productivity. ...
*
Content management system
A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content (content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...
(CMS)
*
Document collaboration
Document and file collaboration are the tools or systems set up to help multiple people work together on a single document or file to achieve a single final version. Normally, this is software that allows teams to work on a single document, such as ...
*
Document management system
A document management system (DMS) is usually a computerized system used to store, share, track and manage files or documents. Some systems include history tracking where a log of the various versions created and modified by different users is r ...
*
Job sharing
Job sharing or work sharing is an employment arrangement where two people, or sometimes more, are retained on a part-time or reduced-time basis to perform a job normally fulfilled by one person working full-time. This leads to a net reduction in p ...
*
Joint authorship Joint authorship of a copyrightable work is when two or more persons contribute enough to the work to be the author of that work. In the case of joint authorship, the authors share the copyright in the work with each other.
International conventio ...
*
Mass collaboration
Mass collaboration is a form of collective action that occurs when large numbers of people work independently on a single project, often modular in its nature. Such projects typically take place on the internet using social software and computer-s ...
*
Networked book
*
New Worlds Project
*
Online word processors
*
Project management
Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. Th ...
*
Real-time text
Real-time text (RTT) is text messaging, text transmitted instantly as it is typed or created. Recipients can immediately read the message while it is being written, without waiting.
Real-time text is used for conversational text, in collaboration, ...
References
Further reading
Paul Benjamin Lowry's papers on collaborative writing
* Lisa S. Ede, Andrea A. Lunsford (1991).
Singular Texts/plural Authors: Perspectives on Collaborative Writing.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Collaborative Writing
Collaborative writing
Writing