Distributive writing is the collective authorship (or distributed authorship) of texts. This further requires both a definition of ''collective'' and ''texts'', where collective means a connected group of individuals and texts are inscribed symbols chained together to achieve a larger meaning than isolated symbols. This places emphasis on texts being represented as writings. This could be written words, iconic

symbology A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different co ...

(e.g.,

graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

), computer programming languages ( C/ C++,

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

Perl Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offic ...

, etc.), meta-level mark-up (

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaS ...

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

SVG Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML-based vector image format for defining two-dimensional graphics, having support for interactivity and animation. The SVG specification is an open standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium s ...

PostScript PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Do ...

), and their derivative works. Also, not to be excluded are all the above in various languages. Further, to define texts, we must also have an interpreter for the texts. For computer programming languages, we have a compiler, for writings we have written words interpreted by our mental faculties, and for meta-level mark-up there are

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...

s, printers to interpret

postscript PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Do ...

, and various

software application Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

s which turn textual representations into another format. (Patrick Deegan and Jon Phillips, 2004)

In ancient and oral literatures

The concept of distributed authorship has been applied to

oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and Culture, cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Traditio ...

s in which one person's telling of a traditional story reflects the oral recitations of many previous tellers. It has likewise been applied to oral-derived written traditions, where a

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced i ...

text is shaped by its transmission through multiple

scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...

s, each of whom may alter the text.Slavica Ranković,
The distributed author and the poetics of complexity: a comparative study of the sagas of Icelanders and Serbian epic poetry
(unpublished PhD thesis, University of Nottingham, 2006).

Software to support distributive writing

Social Software

Social Software Social software, also known as social apps or social platform, include communications and interactive tools that are often based on the Internet. Communication tools typically handle the capturing, storing and presentation of communication, usua ...

enables people to connect, communicate, and collaborate. It is explicitly the social which is of importance and is what is operated on. It is the commodity in the system. This is different from Distributive Writing because social software is based upon software, whereas DW is not, and is not just about collaborative writing. It is also about other forms of socializing.

Collaborative software, aka Groupware

GroupWare is about software and more importantly, in common use to describe combining many pieces of software together into a group for so-called easy access for an individual. The original definition had to do with a group of people operating on something collaboratively through software, but this has changed meaning due to corporate appropriation to describe software suites like

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

LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source office productivity software suite, a project of The Document Foundation (TDF). It was forked in 2010 from OpenOffice.org, an open-sourced version of the earlier StarOffice. The LibreOffice suite co ...

Computer-supported collaboration (CSCT)

Distributive writing is not just bound to

computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...

like CSCT.

Types

Synchronous Synchronization is the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. For example, the conductor of an orchestra keeps the orchestra synchronized or ''in time''. Systems that operate with all parts in synchrony are said to be synchronou ...

– System of authorship where both author's make changes in real time (at the same time).

Asynchronous Asynchrony is the state of not being in synchronization. Asynchrony or asynchronous may refer to: Electronics and computing * Asynchrony (computer programming), the occurrence of events independent of the main program flow, and ways to deal wit ...

– System of authorship where both author's make changes in non-real time (render time or not at the time).

References

{{Reflist

External links

When No One’s Home: Being a Remote Writer in Distributed Teams

Essential Skills for Every Writer
- Infographic Writing