Writing in teams can be a productive and successful way to teach students various business discourses and, in the process, help them become better writers. The HWI set up this page on team writing to help RTFSBA faculty incorporate team writing methods into their pedagogy. The links below provide rationales for using team writing in the classroom, its benefits, and methods for incorporating team writing into your teaching.
What Team Writing Teaches Teams About Writing
- Team writing makes invention strategies public and explicit (brainstorming, listing, outlining).
- Team writing encourages multiple perspectives and multiple drafts.
- Team writing demands revision, analysis of revision strategies, and makes revision public and explicit.
- Team writing focuses on the presentation of the final product, encouraging editing and proofreading.
- Team writing allows writers to recognize differences in style, tone, organization among different writers.
- Team writing forces writers to reflect on their own and others' strengths, weaknesses, and individual styles and processes of writing.
- Team writing demands analysis of rhetorical and stylistic choices.
Team Writing Process
FACTORS in SUCCESSFUL TEAM WRITING
- the degree to which goals are clearly articulated and shared
- the degree of openness and mutual respect among group members
- the degree of control writers have over the text
- the degree to which writers can respond to others who may modify the text
- the way credit (directly or indirectly) is given
- an agreed-upon procedure for responding to work in process and for revising/editing
INVENTION: All of the information on "Generating and Organizing Ideas," "Brainstorming," "Brainwriting," "Affinity Diagrams," and "Multivoting" fall under the rhetorical category of "invention"--the discovery of ideas or arguments. In other words, invention means taking an inventory of what the group knows and what the group needs to find out. Make sure that at least one member of the group is taking notes on during invention exercises. And assign someone to write up those notes for the group, which then become the beginning of a draft.
DRAFTING: Some writing teams use a "lead author," who drafts the entire document from notes and input from each team member. But most writing teams require that different people write different sections. This option is most appropriate if you want to spread the responsibility, if the writers' styles are similar, or if people want to write the section in the area of their expertise. If you use multiple draft writers, be sure to (1) agree about level of formality, format, and other style issues in advance, and (2) allow enough time to revise and edit for consistency after all the drafts are complete. Set early deadlines for initial drafts of each section.
REVISING: Be sure to allow enough time to read several drafts of the document. Read for consistency of style, organization, and thoroughness. Bring annotated drafts with your comments to group meetings and discuss changes each reader believes are necessary. If you have these discussions at the drafting stage, you will have less trouble editing to achieve a coherent voice in the final document. Once each member has read all drafts, set aside one whole meeting for a discussion of revision. Once drafts are revised (this may take several drafts), and you have agreed as a group that the document is in the shape you want it, you will want to read the document again and edit.
EDITING: When you edit a document you are reading for stylistic effectiveness, such as word choice, smooth sentence structure, consistency of voice and tone. There are several different options to choose when editing in groups. (1) One choice is to use one editor. If you do so, schedule enough time for him or her to edit. (2) A second choice is to edit as a group. Circulate a hard or electronic copy for each group member to read and annotate. Then, (1) the group can meet face-to-face or electronically to discuss all editing issues, (2) one person can read all the comments and decide what to incorporate.
PROOFREADING: Proofreading means making sure that your document is free of errors in spelling, punctuation, and typographical mistakes. Ideally, each member of the team should proofread the entire document, since the team's credibility depends on a professionally-prepared text. At least make sure that team members proofread sections that they have not drafted.
RESPONDING TO TEAM MEMBERS: Planning and completing your project depends on dialogue among team members, both in joint meetings and in one-on-one discussions. One way to transform individual contributions into a cohesive team effort is to ask a series of questions about the assignment, the research, and the writing of the document. Questions like these--used at every stage of writing the document-- can help determine crucial issues regarding content, purpose, audience, organization, design, and coherence.
WRITING CHECKLIST
Content:
What additional information might we include? Don't you think we should include/exclude _________?
Purpose/Key Point :
What do you see as our main point (purpose)? What did you mean by _____? Could you clarify the point about _______? I can't quite see why you've decided to ______. Could you explain why? I see a conflict between _____ and ______. How will we deal with it?
Audience :
Who is our intended audience? What is this the appropriate audience? What does the reader expect to read, learn, or do? How will our reader react to ______? Connect _____ to ______? What problems, conflicts, inconsistencies, or gaps might our reader see?
Synthesis/Coherence :
How does ________ relate to, develop, or clarify _______? Is there a conflict between using _______ and ________? Does our evidence add up to a clear argument? Have we used evidence from a variety of sources? Do they conflict or complement one another?
Conventions of Organization and Design :
What format best conveys our point for this audience? In what order should we present this information? What subheadings should we use? What models might we consult?
Conventions of Style : What key words and concepts connect each part to the others? Do we have different "voices" speaking here?
GUIDELINES FOR RESPONDING TO OTHER WRITERS:
- Set deadlines for drafts; devote one whole team meeting to responses/revision of drafts.
- Develop, as a team, a series of questions for each reader to ask about other writers' drafts; decide, as a team, what you want to look for in each writer's draft
- Before distributing drafts to the team, each writer should provide a cover letter with the draft, explaining what she/he tried to accomplish, pointing out strengths/weaknesses, and asking readers specific questions about problem areas.
- Write back to each writer and be prepared to discuss your responses. Provide both positive and negative feedback to writers. Be descriptive, pointing to particular sections or sentences, providing suggestions for revision and explanations of those changes.
Implementing Team Writing
1. Initial Status Report -- Team Writing
Early in the process, ask students assess their own experience, strengths and weaknesses as writers, and then to use that assessment in an early team meeting to make plans for writing together.
Suggested Directions to Students:
Write an initial status report on your readiness to contribute to this team project. Your report should be no more than one page (single-spaced). Make one copy for your instructor and one for each of your team members. Comment on and analyze your experience and your promise in these areas:
YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH TEAM PROJECTS
- Describe your experience working on team projects, both in school and in the workplace.
- Do you like working in teams? Why or why not?
YOUR HABITS AS A WRITER AND RESEARCHER
- How do you typically go about completing a writing project? Last minute? Through several drafts?
- How would you rate yourself as a researcher? In the library? On the Web? As an interviewer?
YOUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
- What do you consider the strongest skill as a writer? Presenter? Researcher?
- What do you consider your weakness in terms of this project?
CONTRIBUTION TO THE TEAM
- What can you contribute to the team in terms of expertise in particular areas?
- What part of this project would you like to lead? The research? The writing? The presentation?
ADVICE TO THE TEAM
- How do you think the team should proceed with this work?
- Based on your experience, what advice do you have about working in teams? What warnings?
2. Progress Reports -- Team Writing
As the team projects progress, ask students to monitor their progress in writing, by submitting weekly minutes, for example. You can also periodically ask for more formal "status" or "progress" reports. In fact, students could complete a version of these progress reports individually and use them to write the team report.
Directions to Students:
As a team, write a one page, single-spaced report that summarizes these areas. (NOTE: These reports could be a section of the weekly minutes, or more formal periodic reports that expand and synthesize the minutes. )
WORK ACCOMPLISHED
Research:
- What tasks have you already accomplished?
- What documents have you gathered?
- What sources have you consulted?
Analysis:
- What analyses have you completed?
- What method(s) of analysis are you using?
- What are you tentative findings?
Presentation/Report:
- Have you decided on a format? For the written report? For the presentation?
- How have you assigned/divided up the work of drafting? revising? editing?
- What main point will your report make? How will you support that point?
- Is there data or research that contradicts or complicates that main point? How will you incorporate that conflict?
- How will you tailor your findings to your particular audience? Questions for later stages:
- How are you handling the work of revision and editing? Have you each read and commented on each section?
- How do you plan to make the report read smoothly as one document rather than as separate sections?
PLANS FOR COMPLETION
- What tasks are left to do? How have you divided/assigned them?
- What do you still need to find?
- Do you have enough/too much material for your presentation?
TEAM PROCESS
- Describe the way your team is working together.
- How have you organized the work? Division of tasks? Lead writer? Lead researcher? Lead presenter?
- Any problems in the team process?
PROBLEMS/QUESTIONS
- Are you running into any problems finding material? Doing the analysis?
- Problems with the writing/revising/editing?
- Do you have questions for me about this project? How can I help?
Last modified on 8/2/07 | Content maintained by
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