Working together: reflections on a non-hierarchical approach to collaborative writing

The process of writing is a cornerstone for academia, reflecting values such as rigour, critique and engagement (Mountz et al., 2015). Academic writing is typically valorized as an individual endeavour, but with the advancement of technology such as synchronous online writing platforms, opportunities to construct scholarly knowledge collaboratively have multiplied (Nykopp et al., 2019). Collaborative writing (CW) involves ‘sharing the responsibility for and the ownership of the entire text produced’ (Storch, 2019, 40), factors that have certainly been enhanced by developing technologies. CW differs from cooperative writing, which involves a division of labour with each individual being assigned to, or completing, a discrete sub-task (Storch, 2019). This chapter discusses the reflections of ten authors from a UK-based research virtual Community of Practice (vCoP) on the challenges and positives encountered during the CW of a research journal article using a shared Google Document.