This post will discuss the following:

  • Tips for collaborative writing;
  • Adding Co-authors
  • Writing & editing collaboratively

Tips for collaborative writing

What does it mean to write collaboratively?  (Hint: it doesn’t mean one person doing all the work and slapping everyone else’s name on it.) Collaborating on anything, but writing especially, can be tricky. Members of the team have to work together to brainstorm and map out a plan for the writing, divide up the responsibilities of writing, review and edit what they have written, and finally, agree to publish the text.

For the task of writing a summary of class discussion collaboratively, for example, the Class Discussion Leaders may want to get together in advance of class to discuss the readings and a rough set of questions or ideas to include in discussion, and decide who wants to take charge of what topics (including jumping in to lead discussion on topics the group hasn’t necessarily planned for). They may also want to divide up the tasks of taking notes on the class discussion, taking a photograph of the board, and writing different sections of the summary (though the group will want to get together to debrief the discussion and plan the written summary), editing/revising, and finally posting.

co-authors

When you collaborate on a post, it’s important that all of the contributors get credit.

To that end, I have created a draft post for each Class Discussion Group’s post. Go to All Posts then find the DRAFT Class Discussion post with your date. All of the group members can edit that post, as a draft or final version. Don’t forget to save your drafts, and publish when you are finished. And, remember to categorize and tag appropriately!

*note: you can only use co-authors if you are the administrator or editor of a site (or have the capability to edit others’ posts)

writing & editing collaboratively

Anyone added as a co-authors on a post may edit a draft or final version of a post. This may be the tool you choose to use as you draft your posts together (save a draft of the post rather than publish it, until you are ready).

You may also wish to use a Google Doc or some other software.