The Future Of Writing Together Emerging Research In Collaborative Writing Technologies

Collaborative writing (CW) has become a common part of many business and organizational activities. The technologies and techniques that support CW have progressed remarkably and valuable research explaining CW success has emerged. Therefore, it is important for organizations to understand the process of CW in order to create efficiency and other positive returns for collaborative work. This chapter breaks down the fundamentals of CW including: (1) an overview of the seven common CW activities, (2) a review of related authoring and document control strategies, and (3) a description of recent advancements in CW tool features. This chapter contributes to the CW literature by summarizing the relevant research in CW, particularly as it relates to thinkLets and CW tools and by outlining specific future research questions related to CW group sizes, webpage authoring, and group awareness.