Collaborative Writing by Pat Schipani

Introduction

After further diving into the in class reading in our book on collaborative writing, I have uncovered a lot of new information I was not previously aware of.  a jumping off point the surprised me is that professionals of all kinds often write in teams or groups.  all the way back in 1982, Purdue University scholars surveyed 200 professional people about on the job writing. the survey would go on to sow that even at this time, 73.5 % of these professionals wrote collaboratively on the job.  however, despite this early survey, there is not a lot of focused information on collaborative writing out there. It actually takes further examination of written documents to see how writers and business people collaborate on written works. Many times it is not clear cut on wether or not multiple writers collaborated on a work project, but after further examination one can usually find that multiple people worked on said body of writing.

Forms of Collaboration

Collaborative writing comes in many forms. many times in which people collaborate on work it starts with researching. It is often very helpful to research topics with multiple people. This strategy of collaborating can really ensure the best information is gathered and then gone over before writing about the topic. a study was conducted to view this point ad found that most business professionals assigned with writing important documents often research in groups to determine the best possible information can be gathered and used.
Another common form of collaborative writing is team writing. In this, groups or teams of people break up information and focus on singular parts to write about. This method helps focus the points of a body of work, and ensures information is not repetitive through out different parts of the paper, letter, project, etc.
Also, peer review is a very common form of collaborative writing we are all almost positively familiar with. Peer review allows for others to read, and even edit your work. This form of collaboration can greatly improve the quality of a pieces of work. Often through peer review typos are found and edits are noted that can be made to improve the work. Another person can often find mistakes, or ways to improve the work that the original author did not see or did not think of themselves.

Multiple studies have shown that collaborative writing is very common in the business world and in common writing practice. the way the group works, the information recovered, the edited information, and writing potential is all raised by collaborative writing, and is an exceptional way to improve your writing as a college student, professional, or average writer.