Guidelines for Successful Collaborative Writing

Following the ten guidelines below will increase your chances of success
when you write in a group.

1. Know the individuals in your group. Establish rapport with your

team.
2. Do not regard one person on the team as more important than
another.
3. Set up a preliminary meeting to establish guidelines.
4. Agree on the group's organization.
5. Identify each member's responsibilities, but allow for individual
talents and skills.
6. Establish the time, places, and length of group meetings.
7. Follow an agreed-on timetable, but leave room for flexibility.
8. Provide clear and precise feedback to members.
9. Be an active listener.
10. Use a standard reference guide for matters of style, documentation,
and format.

Collaborating Online

"For collaborative writing, there are various tools which you can use,
notably the wiki which provides an online shared environment in which
you can write, comment or amend the work of others...If you are required
to contribute to a wiki, take every opportunity to meet regularly with your
collaborators: the more you know the people you collaborate with, the
easier it is to work with them...

"You will also need to discuss how you are going to work as a group. Divide
up the jobs...Some individuals could be responsible for drafting, others for
commenting, others for seeking relevant resources." -Janet MacDonald
and Linda Creanor
Different Definitions of Collaborative Writing

"The meaning of the terms collaboration and collaborative writing are

being debated, expanded, and refined; no final decision is in sight. For
some critics, such as Stillinger, Ede and Lunsford, and Laird, collaboration
is a form of 'writing together' or 'multiple authorship' and refers to acts of
writing in which two or more individuals consciously work together to
produce a common text...Even if only one person literally 'writes' the text,
another person contributing ideas has an effect on the final text that
justifies calling both the relationship and the text it produces collaborative.
For other critics, such as Masten, London, and myself, collaboration
includes these situations and also expands to include acts of writing in
which one or even all of the writing subjects may not be aware of other
writers, being separated by distance, era, or even death." -Linda K. Karrell