Laurence José
Volume 6
Chapter Description
College classes often involve some level of collaborative work. Technical writing courses are no different. In fact, collaboration has long been identified as one of the key components of technical and professional writing courses (Allen and Benninghoff). Yet, many students and teachers have experienced times of anxiety and even dread when they mark the days on the class calendar that precede the start of the group project. From communication issues to fear of unequal workload distribution or scheduling difficulties, there are many reasons for being leery about group work. Because we tend to think of writing as a solitary act, collaborating on writing projects may seem even more complicated. How can one create and produce content as a team? How should the project be handled so that the final product is cohesive and reflects everyone’s input? How can one make sure one group member does not end up handling most of the workload? And, perhaps most importantly, how can one use collaboration to their advantage to make the end product better than a solo-executed project? These are all questions that this chapter addresses. Specifically, this chapter provides strategies not only for developing content as a group but also for making a collaborative writing project meaningful and even fun.
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