Collaborative writing is an essential writing practice during the COVID-19 pandemic amongst educators and journalists.

 Question:  Collaborative writing is an essential writing practice during the COVID-19 pandemic amongst educators and journalists.

 Write an essay to rationalise how collaborative writing can be carried out effectively. Your essay should be between 800 and 900 words.

Solution:  Collaborative writing is a way of combining ideas done by individuals or members of a team.   Although it may be aggravating, there are several ways that can help you get through those dreaded group project tasks. A project's success hinges on effective communication. Everyone in the group should make sure they understand what the assignment comprises and what each person is expected to do.  

       There are many ways to achieve a successful collaborative writing within a group.  One of which is version control and how to utilize it.  Everyone should know how to get to the most current agreed-upon draft at all costs, so that the group has a frame of reference to which it can refer if an issue or disagreement arises. Whether you're working with shared files on a shared server or Alfresco Team, a person will have to make a decision about which changes to make and which sections of the document to keep. This is an example of what can happen: a paragraph that was previously cut gets reinstated, but the paragraph no longer appears to fit because the transition leading into that part has undergone additional alterations. To accommodate this, the transition will need to be redone. Documents are systems in the sense that all of their components are interconnected. 

       Secondly is making sure you know what each revision's goal is. People should be laser-focused on whatever goal they are pursuing. Is this iteration for minor concerns such as style and tone modifications, or for broader ones like as structure and flow? When a revision that was supposed to be a significant clarification comes back with nit-picky style guide modifications, "that" vs. "which" revisions, and so on, it's aggravating. The frustration can be alleviated by having a clear understanding of the revision's goal. 

        Moreover, have faith in the subject matter expert most of the time.  When it comes to content, trust your subject matter expert, but be prepared to push back if they add extra levels of complexity that threaten to confound the very individuals you're trying to reach. Communication should be staged and scheduled. As a result, some math experts aren't particularly excellent math teachers, to use a frequent example. True, but it's at a level of complexity that makes learning impossible. Make sure everyone in your group understands who your document is intended for.

          In addition, don't waste your time fighting a losing battle. When human people collaborate on a project, disagreements are bound to arise. That isn't always a bad thing. Indeed, it is frequently via the process of airing out differences that a new understanding emerges. When the group, project leader, or other decision-making organization has made a decision , the person who strongly preferred a different strategy must move on. Bringing upstream issues into downstream discussions destroys confidence since your teammates assumed the problem had been resolved. It's a unique situation. 

          Lastly, choose a final editor.  Make it clear who is in charge of putting the final copy together. It's certain that two contributors will make competing changes to their working copies of the same file and commit those changes to the repository. Even if your program detects the problem, an editor must remedy the issue before the update is applied and a new version is released.  For sure, people would believe that their changes are more valuable than someone else's. We can't help but be objective in our assessments of our own contributions. Someone has to be in charge of that work, and that person should be able to refer to a style guide that has been agreed upon.

          In conclusion, the pros and challenges of collaborative writing, including the technological component, have been widely studied. The human component in generating collaborative documents can be a source of leverage rather than an uphill struggle with sufficient buy-in from the team, as well as clear ground rules and roles.

 

What is Cause and Effect Depression Amidst Covid-19 Pandemic?

 Question: What is Cause and Effect Depression Amidst Covid-19 Pandemic?

Solution:

The COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic downturn have had a detrimental impact on many people's mental health and raised additional obstacles for those who still suffer from mental illness or drug abuse problems. Approximately 4 in 10 adults in the United States have recorded anxiety or depressive disorder symptoms since the pandemic, a share that has remained relatively stable, up from one in ten adults who reported these symptoms from January to June 2019.

If the pandemic progresses, ongoing and necessary public health efforts expose a growing number of people to situations that are related to poor mental health outcomes, such as loneliness and job loss.

Concerns about mental health and drug use have increased since the COVID-19 pandemic, including concerns about suicidal ideation. In January 2021, 41% of adults reported anxiety and/or depressive disorder symptoms, a percentage that has remained relatively constant since spring 2020. According to a survey conducted in June 2020, 13% of adults reported new or increased drug use as a result of coronavirus-related stress, and 11% of adults reported suicidal thoughts in the previous 30 days. Suicide rates have been that for some time and could escalate as a result of the pandemic. Drug overdose deaths spiked from March to May 2020, coinciding with the start of pandemic-related lockdowns, according to early 2020 data.

Adults in poor general health appear to experience higher rates of anxiety and/or depression than adults in good general health, as they did prior to the pandemic. 1.2 The already high probability of developing a concurrent mental health condition in people with chronic disease could be increased by their susceptibility to serious illness from COVID-19. According to a recent survey, 18% of people who obtained a COVID-19 diagnosis were later diagnosed with a mental health condition including anxiety or mood disorders. Seniors are also more susceptible to serious coronavirus disease and have shown higher levels of anxiety and depression during the pandemic.

Prior to the current epidemic, there were high rates of mental illness and drug abuse, but mental distress during the pandemic is not surprising. Prior to the pandemic, one out of every ten adults had anxiety or depressive symptoms. Nearly one in every five people in the United States has a mental disorder. Over 48,000 Americans died by suicide in 2018,3 and nearly eleven million adults recorded serious thoughts of suicide in the previous year on average between 2017 and 2018. Furthermore, as a result of the opioid epidemic, drug overdose deaths were four times higher in 2018 than they were in 1999.

The pandemic has likely impacted mental health in a number of ways, including widespread social isolation as a result of necessary safety steps. Social alienation and depression have been linked to poor mental and physical health in a large body of study. Even before the pandemic, the widespread experience of isolation had become a public health problem due to its connection to a shorter lifespan and a higher risk of both mental and physical illnesses.

Previous epidemics also caused widespread depression and resulted in new mental health and drug abuse problems. If the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, various groups are at a higher risk of mental illness and will have difficulty getting the treatment they need.

Many young adults have experienced heightened anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, and suicidal thoughts as a result of the pandemic. They have also dealt with a slew of pandemic-related effects, including university closures, shifts to remote jobs, and loss of income or employment, all of which could wreak havoc on their mental health.

Job loss may result in other negative mental health effects, such as drug use disorder, in addition to increased anxiety and depression. The high unemployment rate during the previous recession was also linked to a rise in suicides. According to a KFF Health Tracking Poll conducted in mid-July 2020, a higher percentage of households experiencing income or job loss reported that pandemic-related worry or stress caused them to experience at least one negative effect on their mental health and well-being, such as difficulty sleeping or eating, increased alcohol consumption, or increased anxiety.

Many schools and childcare centers in the United States have closed and switched to virtual instruction for at least some time to help slow the spread of coronavirus. Children and their parents are experiencing constant uncertainty and changes to their everyday lives as a result of these closures. During the pandemic, research revealed questions about children's and parents' mental health and well-being. Many parents of school-aged children, for example, are even more anxious than they were before the pandemic about their children's emotional well-being.