Collaboration vs Individual Writing

Team Research Paper - Collaboration vs Individual Writing

According to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (2009), “Collaboration means, to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor.” When a group of people collaborate on a project there are many different ideas, styles and personalities involved. There must be excellent communication for the project to be completed successfully. Many teams complete a “team charter” that spells out details of the writing process, the team identity as well as addressing plagiarism and conflict resolution.

The writing process consists of prewriting, revising, editing and proofreading. The collaborative writing process is made easier if you start by creating an outline of points you wish to cover in your project. Once the team has completed the prewriting stage of the project, you should organize your notes into paragraphs as determined by your outline. Be sure your paragraphs support your introduction and your thesis statement and flow smoothly.

According to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language (2009), “Prewriting means the creation and arrangement of ideas preliminary to writing.” Prewriting consists of researching to find information to prove or disprove a position on a given subject. According to Michelle Bergey (2000), “Pre-Writing refers to all of those things that you do before you actually start writing. Technically, when you wake up in the middle of the night with an inspiration, that's "pre-writing". However, it's a little hard to prove to your teacher that you have been pre-writing in your sleep!”

Based on the Random House Dictionary (2009), revise means “to alter something already written or printed, in order to make corrections, improve, or update: to revise a manuscript.” During the revision process you should edit carefully for spelling and grammatical errors. Be sure to use appropriate transitional phrases between paragraphs as well as descriptive...