Writing in a Group

Introduction to Writing in a Group

Many business organizations and other professional communities are becoming increasingly interested in recruiting employees with soft skills. Soft skills are a combination of skills (like people skills, communication skills, social skills, etc.) that help people interact effectively with other people. One particular soft skill that more and more companies are valuing is the soft skill of group collaboration— specifically, writing in a group.

As noted by the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in their article entitled Group Writing, “Whether in the academic world or the business world, all of us are likely to participate in some form of group writing— an undergraduate group project for a class, a collaborative research paper or grant proposal, or a report produced by a business team.” In other words, it’s not a matter of if you will ever have to write and collaborate in a group; it’s a matter of when.

While collaborating and writing in groups comes with its own set of challenges (like varying opinions, personalities, and writing styles), there are also many benefits that come from this type of collaboration. For example, when you write in a group, you have the benefit of multiple perspectives and multiple levels of knowledge and experience. You also have the benefit of extra hands to share the workload, which can be a real value-add when deadlines are tight or the project is large. 

Whatever your reason for writing in a group, there are some simple steps you can take to ensure that your experience, and the finished product, are successful.