Team Writing: A Guide to Working in Groups

Built around real group interactions, Team Writing is a flexible, hybrid resource that pairs videos with a brief print book. Based on research revealing major problems at all stages of peer group work, the book shows how written communication can help technical writing students contribute to team projects in a meaningful way — and provides strategies for dealing with the breakdowns that can derail a project’s success. Numerous examples highlight the kind of written communication that helps teams thrive. Short, Web-based videos depict student teams in action, going beyond the textbook to show what real collaboration looks and sounds like.

Built around real group interactions, Team Writing is a flexible, hybrid resource that pairs videos with a brief print book. Based on research revealing major problems at all stages of peer group work, the book shows how written communication can help technical writing students contribute to team projects in a meaningful way — and provides strategies for dealing with the breakdowns that can derail a project’s success. Numerous examples highlight the kind of written communication that helps teams thrive. Short, Web-based videos depict student teams in action, going beyond the textbook to show what real collaboration looks and sounds like.

Joanna Wolfe (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is Associate Professor of English at the University of Louisville where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in writing and rhetoric and composition. She is author of numerous scholarly articles on teamwork, gender studies, collaborative learning technology, and technical writing appearing in forums such as Journal of Engineering Education, Journal of Business and Technical Communication, and Written Communication. Her research on collaborative writing in technical communication classes won the 2006 NCTE award for best article reporting qualitative or quantitative research in technical and scientific communication.