WRITING COLLABORATIVELYENGL3359: Technical WritingMartin (Adopted from Spinuzzi, 2012)

THE PROBLEM WITH WRITING LONG DOCUMENTS

Coordination: Getting everyone point in the same direction — in terms of objectives, responsibilities, and effort

Cooperation: Making sure everyone stays pointed in the same direction

Coherence: Producing an argument that hangs together

THE FIVE PARAGRAPH ESSAY

Introduction: Thesis sentence, forecasting

Point 1: Claim and evidence

Point 2: Claim and evidence

Point 3: Claim and evidence

Conclusion: Restate thesis, summarize

BUT THE FIVE PARAGRAPH ESSAY WON’T HELP:

This organization works fine for short, constrained arguments (composition assignments, letters of application), but not for longer arguments. It does not scale well.

It leads to fragmented arguments

It provides no support for group argumentation

It provides no support for complex argumentation

THE RESEARCH REPORT

Introduction: Thesis and forecasting

Situation and Objectives: What’s wrong, and what does this report do about it?

Methods: How was the situation investigated?

Results: What did you find?

Discussion (recommendations): What does it mean (to us)?

BUT THE RESEARCH REPORT BY ITSELF IS ONLY A MARGINAL IMPROVEMENT

It sharply divides functions in the sections

In group projects, those divisions often mirror divisions of labor and chronology

Those divisions lead to silos: the parts don’t “talk” to each other

Coordination, cooperation, and coherence issues are dealt with intuitively

APPROACHES TO PULLING TOGETHER A COLLABORATIVE REPORT

This problem is typically handled through ad hoc means:

designating a chief editor

subordinating work to a chief author/architect

committing to multiple rounds of global revisions, or

simply hoping for the best

HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY.

PULLING TOGETHER A COLLABORATIVE WRITING PROJECT TAKES WORK AT THREE LEVELS

Strategic: Managerial; involves initiation and planning of projects

Tactical: Project leadership; involves planning and executing milestones

Operational: Team members; involves controlling, executing, and closing steps

THE STRATEGIC LEVEL (PART 1)

Set objectives, the concrete aims the project will accomplish — not just as a policy argument, but also as a policy document. (Audience, framing, limiting, of claims and argument).

Set themes, the common threads that will bind together to different parts of the argument. (Objectives, assumptions, desired results).

THE STRATEGIC LEVEL (PART 2)

Set standards of evidence, the standards that will govern what you can use to underpin your arguments. (Audience, disciplinary standards, assumptions).

Determine the overall argument, based on the above. This argument may shift tactically during the process, but will strategically remain the same.

THE TACTICAL LEVEL (PART 1)

Adopt an organizational structure that will afford maximum flexibility and mutual oversight. Decentralize and core-dump.

Set milestones that will move you to the strategic objective, working backward from the delivery date. Word these as concrete actions that move your team toward the objective. Make sure internal milestones lead external ones.

Delegate milestones to team members during planning. These include both investigation and writing.

THE TACTICAL LEVEL (PART 2)

Maintain accountability by surfacing milestone status, progress, and concerns. Reevaluate progress periodically.

Split and consolidate milestones when necessary. Retain tactical flexibility.

Draft sections early, drawing from team interactions. (In early stages, writing is not a byproduct of the investigatory work, not a separate set of tasks.)

Work themes into the draft sections, monitoring conflicts and drifts.

THE OPERATIONAL LEVEL (PART 1)

Establish and publicize style guidelines early by adopting a style manual, guide, or sheet.

Establish and publicize organizational guidelines early by agreeing on paragraph-level organization (inductive, deductive) and chunking (long paragraphs vs. headings and bullets)

THE OPERATIONAL LEVEL (PART 2)

Establish editorial responsibility (style, mechanics, organization) and aids (grammar checkers, checklists).

Establish backup responsibility in case emergency strikes (e.g. someone gets hit by a bus).

SOFTWARE FOR SUCCESSFUL COLLABORATION

Collaborative project management (Basecamp, Zoho Projects, Wrike, PBWiki *my favorite*, or a simple spreadsheet).

Collaborative document editing (Google Docs *my favorite*, Zoho Office Suite, PBWiki).

PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Collaborative: Everyone should see the emerging shape of the project

Central yet distributed: This should constitute a central “core dump” of the group’s work, one that distributes the work and makes it “bus-proof.” Make sure to back it up.

STO: All group members should be able to review the project at strategic, tactical, and operational (STO) levels, anytime.

WRITING SOFTWARE

Collaborative: Allows all team members to access each document, anytime.

Versioned: Tracks changes and allows reversion to previous versions. (Email ping-pong creates versioning issues).

Commented: Allows all team members to insert comments, either in-line or attached.

PARTING THOUGHTS

Collaborative writing is not the same as single-author writing. Early agreement, deliberation, coordination, and mutual accountability are critical.

Collaborative writing is the byproduct of the project. These projects are less about the writing (putting text on the page) and more about the policy objectives that are established and met in related efforts and media.