Collaborative Virtual Writing

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS 

SYNOPSIS:

As more opportunities emerge for collaborating virtually on writing projects, the nature of collaboration using computer-mediated communication (CMC) technology becomes increasingly important.

• Collaboration entails strategic and generative interactivity among individuals who seek to achieve a common goal. Such goals include problem solving, knowledge sharing, and advancing discovery.
• Collaborative writing increasingly occurs in virtual settings - a process that occurs both asynchronously, by sharing a document, as well as synchronously in face-to-face or telephone settings.

When authors write virtually, their processes are distributed across geographic locations, but also within the co-located space of an office or institutional setting. Unlike traditional document sharing and face-to-face or telephone interactions, virtual writing requires participants to communicate using CMC technologies, which include everything from instant messaging and email to interactions that take place via web pages and webcasts and through the use of graphical user interfaces.

The questions arise, then: How do authors ensure effective collaboration in virtual settings and using digital tools? Do they choose particular combinations of technology for specific types of writing projects? Do they employ rhetorical strategies in their use of various technologies? How do they use the tools to develop a sense of interdependence among writers? In this context, effective collaboration requires rhetorical uses of those technologies and develops a sense of interdependence among writers through them.

This book will investigate the use of CMC technology to facilitate effective interdependent collaboration in writing projects, especially in virtual workplace settings. To do so, it will consider the history, theory, and original purposes for various CMC technologies that are used for collaboration in virtual writing projects. It will discuss theories of collaboration and rhetorical strategies for writing, including an overview and history of collaborative writing and how CMC technologies change and enhance that writing process in a virtual setting. To this end, this book will consider applications of specific technologies that promote effective collaborative outcomes. It will attempt to synthesize and identify contemporary best practices for implementing and managing collaborative writing in virtual settings.

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