Compares several technical reports written by students showing the influences of a writer's identification with a community on features of the resulting document. Finds that features most affected were personal and community references within the document, writer's stance toward the reader, and definition of the rhetorical problem. (RS)

Describes how recent research in industry and academia on collaborative writing has redefined authorship, documented writing experiences, developed models, and established guidelines for successful collaboration that include attention to both writing processes and group processes. (SR)

Studies master's students in professional writing to discern value added by technical communicators. Shows that some expertise is brought to collaborative projects, while other types develop as a function of collaboration. Provides practicing communicators, students, and managers with ideas for documenting, developing, and enhancing this…

Examines the relationship between the characteristics of second-year MBA student writing groups and the quality of their group-written reports. Finds that the most significant correlation between the groups and their writing was whether or not individuals chose to form teams on the basis of having worked together previously in writing projects.…

Explores the writing model developed by Linda Flower and John Hayes, examining its usefulness in studying workplace writing from the social perspective. Finds that the model is a valuable tool from the cognitive perspective of composition research but notes its limitations in describing the group processes of collaborative writing. (MG)

Reports on the results of survey research designed to determine how students feel about peer assistance and group writing. Finds that results were generally favorable, although more problems surfaced regarding collaborative projects than peer criticism. States that statistical analysis of objective and open-ended items yielded suggestions for…

A study was conducted to examine the collaborative writing process of a group of executives at a financially unstable computer software company as they wrote a business plan to encourage investment in the company and to determine how the process affected the corporate structure. Data were collected from field notes, tape recorded meetings, open…

Presents a case study of a year-long collaboration over the Internet between a systems analyst from Sweden and a technical communicator from the United States that resulted in a conference paper. Describes the progress of the collaboration, the major difficulties encountered, and the authors' conclusion about its success. Suggests how to improve…

An ethnographic study used M. M. Bakhtin's language theory of socially rooted multiple voices to compare the group-writing processes of two corporate documents. Data were collected during a 5-month participant observation of the production processes of a 504-word executive letter, which took 55 days from first draft to approval, and a 1,851-word…

Offers a Burkean framework for study of collaborative business writing. Reviews the research on collaborative writing, explains a Burkean framework that identifies key areas for future investigation, and provides categories for conducting research. Argues for a research agenda that emphasizes qualitative studies first, to be followed by…

Examines interactions occurring when writers collaborate, and explores how writers use computers to collaborate. Describes a case study of one group in an upper-level business and technical writing course taught in a computer-assisted writing lab. Concludes that students used computers throughout the collaborative process primarily to share drafts…

Explores the effects of "Collaborative Writer" software on students' collaborative writing processes and attitudes. Finds that this approach helps students develop equitable divisions of labor, subtly supervise their peers, share ill-formed information, and coordinate writing that is continually evolving. (RS)

Describes a study that explored the collaborative writing processes of a group of business executives over the course of a year as they prepared a vital company document. Shows how context affected the writers' conceptions of their rhetorical situations and their writing behavior and how the rhetorical activities influenced the structure of the…

Considers how ideology in its various manifestations intersects with collaborative composing both in the business writing class and in the corporation. Describes several classroom experiences which demonstrate how ideology influences students' collaborative dynamics. Considers from a more distant vantage how specific composing ideologies influence…

Presents 48 annotations of journal articles reporting research on using computers to teach technical and business writing published between 1984 and 1990. Arranges it to assist teachers in incorporating this research in the classroom. Covers past research, effect of computers on student attitudes, use of word processors, collaborative writing with…