Collaborative writing
Writing in collaboration with others is an integral part of much contemporary research. While different disciplines have different conventions and expectations about this, there are common benefits. Collaborative writing demonstrates your ability to work well with others, to accept and adapt to feedback, and to critically reflect on your assertions. In many cases, writing collaboratively leads to more robust and reliable outputs. Although single-authored publications might also be important (or even the most important thing) in your area, writing effectively with others is a useful skill to develop.
What is co-authorship?
Co-authorship describes the process of writing collaboratively with others. The bounds of co-authorship and the process of writing together can be varied, not only across the expectations of different disciplines, but also across different projects or individual pieces of work. In principle, anyone who has made a research contribution to a piece of work can be an author. Being an author is not tied to a person’s role, position or status.
There are benefits to collaborative writing, including:
- splitting the workload
- increased motivation and focus
- peer-learning
- mentoring
- more deliberate revision
- expanding ideas and analyses.
Helen Dale’s research suggests that co-authorship can have a positive impact for less-experienced writers. Co-authorship is also a powerful tool for supervision, enabling supervisors and candidates to work closely together to produce research outputs.
There are also challenges, including:
- different people having different approaches to writing and working
- disagreement about attribution of credit
- disagreement about content to include
- practicalities of collaboration (from the tools you use, to the time zones you’re in)
- it can be more time consuming than producing a document alone.
It is important that all co-authorships are entered into with prior discussion of the potential challenges and how they will be managed if they arise.
What should you consider before undertaking collaborative writing?
Collaborative writing might not always be something you anticipate, opportunities to write with others (for graduate researchers, this will often be with supervisors) might present themselves rather than you initiating them. In some disciplines, it may be an unspoken expectation that papers will be co-authored. Whatever the circumstances, it is generally advisable to consider some of the following things before embarking on co-authorship:
- Do you want to work with this person / these people as co-authors?
- Are you clear about the expectations involved, not just of you, but also of your co-authors?
- What do you and your co-authors want out of the publication in question?
- Do you know how you like to work best and have you discussed preferred methods of working with your co-authors? How, and in what ways, might you be willing to compromise around this?
Remember: Communication is key. There are many more kinds of collaborative writing that you might encounter during your time as a researcher, the key to making them work is open and honest communication.
Attribution and accountability
It is vital to discuss and agree on attributions of work and authorship as early on as possible during the writing process – ideally before anyone has started writing anything – and revisit these discussions as needed.
The guide on authorship supporting the implementation of the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research (2018) is a useful starting point.
Some writers think of authorship just as intellectual credit, and it is not unusual in a research team for there to be differences of opinion about who should get what credit for which contributions. It’s worth thinking about what strategy you can use to resolve these sorts of disagreements. However, authorship is also about accountability: every researcher needs to be able to be held accountable for the work they publish, and this is also reflected in authorship.
Tips for collaborative writing
- Planning is always important when writing but it is even more important with collaborative writing – be as transparent as possible (including letting others know if you’re experiencing a delay or setback)
- Explore and discuss your technological options for collaboration. What platforms are best to facilitate this particular piece of work / this group of colleagues? How will you draft and share feedback? How and how often will you meet?
- Be open to and ready for feedback
- Accept that it can sometimes be frustrating encountering other approaches to work that we are unfamiliar with, but also recognise this is a great opportunity for reflective practice. What do you like and why? What might you like to change and why?
- Sometimes there is joy to be found in collaborative writing (embrace it when it happens) and remember that by co-authoring a publication, you might be creating the foundation for enduring, scholarly relationships
Further resources
Frassl M., Hamilton D., Denfeld B., de Eyto E., Hampton S.E., Keller P., Sharma S., Lewis A., Weyhenmeyer G., O'Reilly C., Lofton M., & Catalán N. (2018) Ten simple rules for collaboratively writing a multi-authored paper. PLoS Computational Biology, 14(11): e1006508
Guerin, C., Aitchison, C. & Carter, S. (2024) Creating, Managing and Editing Publications: A guide for scholars. Routledge.
Lemon, N. & Salmons, J. (2021). Reframing and Rethinking Collaboration in Higher Education and Beyond: A practical guide for doctoral students and early career researchers. Routledge.