Writing In Groups: Some Suggestions:
1)Delegate duties and divvy up the work. Figure out who has time for what and when, who has interest and skill in the different project elements. Assume this division of labor will change and evolve over time.
2) Ban the use of texting and answering your cell during your meetings. Nothing says “I don’t give a s***t about my team and this project” like answering your cell or texting during a meeting.
3) Brainstorm ideas in teams of three or fewer people. Six people sitting around brainstorming is usually three extroverted people sitting around brainstorming and the other three shy people wasting time.
Take notes. Unwritten ideas don’t count for sweet diddley on a writing project, and no, you won’t remember: write the ideas down: all of them, even the ones you thought were bad.
4) Meet again as a whole group and share the brainstorming notes. This should generate even more brainstorming notes. If it doesn’t, you probably just wasted your meeting.
5) Re-delegate if necessary, but now break the project into separate chapters or sections that individuals will write.
Personally, I think three people sitting around a single laptop and composing paragraphs is an utter waste of time, and it’s certainly not how I’ve seen experienced writers working.
6) Pass around what group members have written and make revisions. This can be done face to face to generate discussion or simply electronically using “Track Changes” in Word.
7) Meet again as a group to discuss the project so far. This is a time to *discuss* what you have all read of each others’ writing, so show up with hard copies of the other group members’ writing and your comments written on it.
8) Now go back and make permanent changes to the documents, based on that feedback.
9) Send everything to *one person* to compile into a complete document. This or another person must make this disparate document read as a single work, as if it were written by one person: make it flow and edit out redundancies etc.
10) Send that completed document around. Everyone makes revision comments.
11) Edit: *one person* now revises the entire document for coherence and cohesion: so that all the parts make sense as a whole and so that it flows as a single document, as if it were written by a single author.
12) Send it around one last time; thus, if something is wrong with it, the entire group is responsible.