Collaborative writing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The terms collaborative writing and peer collaboration refer 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 top-down oversight.
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[edit] Evolution
The following list gives one possible overview of the evolution of computer-based collaborative writing (opinions may vary as to the order, number, and details of the steps).
- File exchange via removable media (sneakernet) or email
- File exchange via shared file server
- Revision control software providing check-in/out
- Enterprise information portal, Content management system
- Wikis
[edit] Practical approaches
In a true collaborative environment, each contributor has an 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.
A very good method of discussion and communication is essential, especially if disagreements arise.
[edit] Examples
Collaborative writing projects include:
- Novel Twists Online collaborative novel where each of the 150 pages is written one at a time by a different person. The website features a distinctive book/desktop design, and has received worldwide press interest. The finished book will be published via lulu.com(wiki)-lulu.com(web).
- co-write.me.uk A collaborative project, where authors submit their short stories, and users vote on the stories. The winning entries are published ( in print ) and sold through Amazon.co.uk (wiki) - amazon.co.uk (web) and lulu.com(wiki)-lulu.com (web). The co-write.me.uk forum is a true collaborative writing project where users can continue stories started by other users.
- H2G2
- Everything2
- Ekşi Sözlük
- New Worlds Project - Online collaborative writing project
- adjute.com - a collaborative writing experiment
- OOoAuthors
- The International Writing Exchange
- The Linux documentation project
- Ilf and Petrov
- Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
- Kozma Prutkov
- Nicolas Bourbaki
- Panhistoria, a collaborative writing site consisting of numerous "novels" in various genres: science fiction, romance, thrillers, horror, historical fiction, action adventure, westerns, etc. Each of the novels has its own section under its genre subheading and is written and controlled by its writing members. Panhistoria
- Trillium Report
- Wikipedia and many other wikis (see Who writes Wikipedia)
- Reena Spaulings (a collective novel by The Bernadette Corporation)
- www.relaywrite.com - Relaywrite.com is a story factory. Writers from all over the world assemble fiction stories piece by piece until they are completed.(everyone has the ability to start their own story)]
- Labyrinth Novel - "Let us build the greatest story of all time." - multi category, multi language, truly collaborative writing.
- The City of Stories - Collaborative writing of heroes, villains, and those caught in-between, set in a big city environment. Any character genre welcome!
- Storyscript - Collaborative fiction writing creating urban legends and cult classics.
Some collaborative writing projects are also open content.
"Collaborative writing is working in a group as small as two or as large as one can imagine to create a document. The group members can work in a synchronous environment (face to face, at the same computer, in the same classroom) or asynchronous (discussion board, email, letters). The group collectively negotiates, coordinates, researches and monitors their writing process to accomplish their task. Often group members will be assigned roles such as monitor, consultant, editor, reporter and leader to streamline the process. They will often follow a schedule of brainstorming, outlining, drafting, reviewing, revising and copy editing to produce the document. This coordinated consensus will produce many benefits. Maximum input, increased learning, varied points of view and fraternization are benefits of this style of work. It is believed this method of writing will produce a higher quality of work as opposed to a single writer/single reviewer method. Collaborative writing is utilized by members of academia, business and government."[citation needed] - Lowry Curtis Lowry, 2004
[edit] Similar and related concepts
- coauthoring
- collaborative authoring
- Collaborative editing
- Collaborative fiction
- Collaborative learning
- cooperative writing
- group writing
- joint authoring
- Massively distributed collaboration
- shared document collaboration
- team writing
[edit] External links
- Stanford - Collaborative Writing and Research in Higher Education
- Research papers about the collaborative writing process:
- Analysing interactions during collaborative writing with the computer: an innovative methodology
- SAC98 - Ceilidh: Collaborative Writing on the Web
- Building a Taxonomy and Nomenclature of Collaborative Writing to Improve Interdisciplinary Research and Practice
- metacollab.net - a collaborative writing project focusing on collaboration.
- Collaboration Made Simple with Bracket Notation
- ublot - A website dedicated to facilitating collaboration of user submitted "blots" which make up a story.
