collaborative writing

The term collaborative writing refers to projects where written works are created by multiple people together (collaboratively) rather than individually. Some projects are overseen by an editor or editorial team, but many grow without any oversight. Collaborative writing is also an approach for teaching novice authors to write.

Practical approaches

In a true collaborative environment, each contributor has an almost equal ability to add, edit, and remove text. The writing process becomes a recursive task, where each change prompts others to make more changes. It is easier to do if the group has a specific end goal in mind and harder if a goal is absent or vague.

Using collaborative writing tools can provide substantial advantages to projects ranging from increased user commitment to easier, more effective and efficient work processes.

It is often the case that when users can directly contribute to an effort and feel that they've made a difference, they become more involved with and attached to the outcome of the project. The users then feel more comfortable contributing time, effort, and personal pride into the final product, resulting in a better final outcome.

In addition, collaborative writing tools have made it easier to design better work processes. These tools provide ways to monitor what users are contributing and when they contribute so managers can quickly verify that assigned work is being completed. Since these tools typically provide revision tracking, it has also made data sharing simpler. Users won't have to keep track of what version is the current working revision since the software has automated that.

Furthermore, because this software typically provides ways for users to chat in real time, projects can be completed faster because users don't have to wait for other users to respond by asynchronous means like email.

Others advantage is that since this software makes it easy for users to contribute from anywhere in the world, projects can benefit from the inclusion of perspectives from people all around the world.

It is important to point out that to be able to use collaborative writing in the classroom we need something to use with and for this we have "Wikis". They are an exceptionally useful tool for getting students more involved in curriculum. They’re often appealing and fun for students to use, while at the same time ideal for encouraging participation, collaboration, and interaction. Although the wiki software can be used in many ways, most wikis share some basic characteristics that distinguish them from other social and collaborative technologies: they are unique, collaborative, open editing, simple coding and evolving