Building a taxonomy and nomenclature of collaborative writing to improve interdisciplinary research and practice.

This article provides a taxonomy of nomenclature for, and discussion of issues related to collaborative writing. The goal is to enhance its research, improve its application in academia and industry, and help produce technologies that better support collaborative writing. To write collaboratively and build supportive technologies, practitioners and academics need to use a consistent nomenclature and taxonomy of collaborative writing. This article defines key collaborative writing terms and builds a taxonomy, including collaborative writing activities, strategies, control modes, work modes, and roles. This article stresses that effective choices in group awareness, participation, and coordination are critical to successful collaborative writing outcomes, and that these outcomes may be promoted through collaborative writing software, chat software, face-to-face meetings, and group processes.

Keywords: collaborative writing; taxonomy; collaboration; group awareness; collaborative writing software

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Collaborative writing (CW) is a highly essential writing and group act in which prominence is likely to increase. CW is widely performed in industry, academia, and government (Anderson, 1985; Baecker, Glass, Mitchell, & Posner, 1994; Beck, 1993; Couture & Rymer, 1989; Cross, 1993; Lowry, Albrecht, Nunamaker, & Lee, 2002; Mabrito, 1992; Smart, 1993). CW is a useful form of group work because of its many potential benefits, such as learning (Trimbur, 1985); socialization and new ideas (LeFevre, 1987); maximum input, varying viewpoints, checks and balances, experience, joint knowledge, writing expertise, accuracy, and more understandable documents (Ede & Lunsford, 1990); higher document quality (Beck, 1993); and enhanced interpersonal relationships (Rice & Huguley, 1994). The importance of CW is likely to continue into the foreseeable future, especially as most work in business involves collaborative work (Barbour, 1990); meanwhile, increasing globalization magnifies the need for collaborative work, and the Internet magnifies the ability to collaborate.

Given the importance of CW and its interdisciplinary nature, researchers have examined it from several interdisciplinary perspectives. Articles have been published on such topics as CW strategies (Ede & Lunsford, 1990), issues encountered by MBA students using basic CW technologies (Forman, 1991), processes and practices in the military (Rice & Huguley, 1994), e-Government (Lowry et al., 2002), a research bibliography (Bosley, Morgan, & Allen, 1990), a case study on authority in CW groups (Loehr, 1995), a survey on CW in engineering co-op experiences (Kreth, 2000), CW in the workplace (Duin, 1991), large CW groups (McIsaac & Aschauer, 1990), an ethnographic study of large CW groups (Cross, 1998, 2001), CW experiments using computer-mediated communication (Galegher & Kraut, 1994), creating a CW course (Belanger & Greer, 1992), CW hypertext technologies (Rada & Wang, 1998), and CW experiments using CWspecific software (Lowry et al., 2002; Olson, Olson, Storrosten, & Carter, 1993).

Although notable interdisciplinary CW research has been produced, much of the research is disjointed, assumes contrasting definitions of CW (Beck, 1993), and lacks a common taxonomy and nomenclature for interdisciplinary discussion. This lack of a common understanding of CW undermines the efforts of practitioners and researchers, especially in interdisciplinary efforts, such as developing technologies to support CW. Ede and Lunsford (1990) maintain that a lack of a common nomenclature caused difficulties in their CW research, suggesting that "we had difficulty eliciting information, primarily because we lack a vocabulary to discuss what people do when they write collaboratively" (p. 63). In an attempt to solve this problem, these scholars propose a description of different CW strategies, a solution that shows the value of a typology in that it improved the specificity of their research results:

Our survey results suggest that writing groups use [CW strategies]

frequently, though hardly anyone had a name for them. In fact,

some told us they realized they were following set or pre-

established organizational patterns only after completing our

survey, demonstrating the principle that what lacks a name, we often

simply do not recognize. (p. 64)

In teaching CW in the classroom, Duin (1990) concludes similarly that students need a common nomenclature to succeed in CW projects:

If we assign collaborative projects and tell groups simply to

figure out a way to complete the work, the groups will muddle

through the process, but they will not be equipped with the

terms or the tools that will help them in future collaborative

projects in college and in the business community.... [By

developing] a common vocabulary with which to frame their

discussion and collaborative processes, they learn what is

important to each person working on the project, and they begin

to understand how issues such as control over the text or

flexibility with manuscript formats affect their joint work.

(p. 49)

The lack of an interdisciplinary approach and common understanding of CW undermines the ability of researchers and practitioners to solve the core issues of CW, which require interdisciplinary collaboration for resolution. The lack of common terminology and taxonomies in CW research would be akin to having the many disciplines involved in the study and treatment of cancer--such as medicine, biology, biochemistry, dietetics, nursing, and biomedical engineering--were to use completely different terms and taxonomies for cancer research. Such a state in cancer research would be considered absurd and counterproductive. Although such a lack of common nomenclature and taxonomies in cancer research would not be responsible for the existence of cancer, it would certainly impair the interdisciplinary cancer research community's ability to collaboratively discuss and treat cancer problems.

Although CW may not be as dramatic as cancer research, CW is a highly salient area of collaborative research and practice that has significant impact on academia, industry, and government. Thus, we believe that the interdisciplinary CW community that is interested in CW is impaired by a lack of a common nomenclature that undermines progress on critical CW issues. Often, CW issues are studied in isolation and through one perspective, whether it be through science (computer science, information systems, information technology, or software engineering), social science (group decision making, social psychology, sociology, applied psychology, communication, group dynamics, organizational behavior, or change management), or through the humanities (rhetorical discourse, linguistics, English, or composition). Much can be gained by building on the strengths of each area, through a common discourse, to create interdisciplinary solutions to pressing CW issues.

Examples of issues in CW that will likely need interdisciplinary research for resolution include issues with poor task definition, personality differences, leadership, group dynamics, managing a group, and hidden agendas (Forman & Katsky, 1986); inequitable work distribution and difficulties monitoring progress (Kraut, Galegher, & Egido, 1988); self-disclosure, control, trust, perception, roles, and reward (Lay, 1989); ideology (Porter, 1990); freeloading (Barbour, 1990); confusion, time management, expense, excessive diversity of ideas, disjointed efforts, and lack of cohesion (DuFrene & Nelson, 1990); stylistics inconsistencies, satisfaction, and creativity (Ede & Lunsford, 1990); communication and planning (Hotton, Rogers, Austin, & McCormick, 1991); distributed work (Ellis, Gibbs, & Rein, 1991); duplication of effort (Horton et al., 1991); organizational culture issues, commitment issues, power, and difficulty accepting criticism (Locker, 1992); conflicting needs and organizing work (Sharpies et al., 1993); conflict (Cross, 1994); coordinating work and challenging and questioning authority (Galegher & Kraut, 1994); version control (Tammaro, Moseir, Goodwin, & Spitz, 1997); and effective use of technology (Adkins, Reinig, Kruse, & Mittleman, 1999). To make progress on these issues, more interdisciplinary research needs to be conducted to learn about appropriate CW processes and activities that predict success and failure of different kinds of CW teams that work on various writing tasks. Like interdisciplinary cancer research, interdisciplinary CW research will be aided by use of a common taxonomy and nomenclature.

A consistent nomenclature and taxonomy of CW would also aid the interdisciplinary CW community in continuing to build on its rich research tradition. Too often in our disciplines we are quick to move on to the latest and greatest trends, yet slow to build on the rich contributions of the past. This article attempts to partially fill this need by proposing a nomenclature and taxonomy of CW that strengthens the foundation for CW research and issue resolution.

This article proposes a common taxonomy and nomenclature of CW, as follows: The next section starts by presenting key literature that defines the difference between single-author writing and CW. The proposed typology is then presented. We then show a specific example of how application of the proposed nomenclature and typology advanced our research in distributed CW technologies. Finally, given this example, we delineate many interdisciplinary research opportunities that can benefit from this common nomenclature and taxonomy.

DEFINING CW