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.