“Even the lamest page can be saved by collaboration.”

Philip Greenspun

If you guessed Chapter 4 in the Technical Communication book was about writing collaboratively then you get a digital cookie. Don't eat it or you'll probably get digital indigestion and vomit a garbled mess of words into a post. Fair warning, I may have ingested one of those cookies.

Let's get this over quickly. Here's a recap of the most important things discussed in Mike Markel's Technical Communication 7th Edition textbook:

Patterns of collaboration

based on job specialty

based on the stages of the writing process

based on the section of the document

Advantages of collaboration:

greater knowledge base

greater skills base

provides a better idea of how the audience will read the document

improves communication among employees

helps acclimate new employees to an organization

Disadvantages of collaboration

takes more time than individual writing

can lead to groupthink

can yield a disjointed document

can lead to inequitable workloads

can reduce collaborators' motivation to work hard on the document

can lead to interpersonal conflict

Basic tips on conducting meetings:

setting your group's agenda

conducting efficient face-to-face meetings

communicating diplomatically

critiquing a group member's drafts [I'll expand on this one because most people have problems with this issue]

start with a positive comment

discuss the larger issues first

talk about the writing, not the writer

focus on the group's document, not on the group member's draft or section

Exercises/Projects from Chapter 4 of Technical Communication

None... All of the exercises or projects require a group or are too basic even for the purposes of this blog.

I'll take this opportunity to ask my readers and followers to give me some feedback. Feel free to send me some points (professional, writer, or slacker) with a short explanation. Look for any cardinal sin grammatical errors, sloppy writing, or any other issue that makes me look unprofessional. You can either sent it through Tumblr or via e-mail. Keep in mind that the purpose of this blog is to improve my writing and share my journey with whomever finds this obscure blog.  

*For an updated version (Ninth Edition) of Technical Communication  click on the link.