Over the past year, I’ve found myself involved in more collaborative writing projects. This isn’t really something that came up in my discipline in grad school, where everything I worked on was written alone. These projects are much harder to organize than my solo work: often, they span several platforms, multiple email threads, chats, and files.
I’ve noticed that everyone I work with has a different preference for technologies and strategies. Here are a few I’ve been using, and their advantages and disadvantages:
- Google Docs. It seems like every committee and project ends up with its own document or folder in my Google account these days, even though it’s not the primary platform of my university. Google docs are wonderfully versatile, but not great for handling citations and other formatted elements. I’ll usually only keep early stage brainstorming
- Shared Dropbox folder. For big projects (like books) with a number of contributors, shared Dropbox folders are very convenient. It’s also my preferred method of sharing projects once they are formatted, as all file types are easily shared, and recent additions have made it easier to keep track of changes. However, it doesn’t handle things as smoothly as Google Docs when multiple people try to work on a file at once.
- Microsoft OneDrive. One of the biggest advantages of using Microsoft’s hosting for collaboration is existing institutional investment--some universities already rely on Microsoft Office’s subscription service for a number of programs. However, it’s not the greatest for cross-platform work, and like Dropbox it isn’t ideal for simultaneous editing.
- Slack. For projects that involve a lot of collaborators and discussion, a dedicated group platform can be great to handle the task distribution and back and forth. Slack serves this purpose well, and Maha has written previously with good advice about when to use Slack. I particularly like how it keeps multiple conversations far better organized than email chains.
- Zotero. Handling sources (particularly for a book) is enough of a task solo, but it can easily get disorganized when multiple people are involved. Zotero has been written a lot about by ProfHackers over the years, and it’s still one of my favorite tools for collaborative bibliography writing thanks to the straightforward group implementation.
I still haven’t found one perfect solution for co-writing at a distance, although these tools have all made it easier.
What’s your workflow for collaborative writing? Share your tools and tips in the comments!
[CC BY 2.0 Photo by fotologic]