Team Writing: A Guide to Working in Groups

by Joanna Wolfe

Pairing videoes with a brief book, Team Writing shows how written communication can help technical writing students contribute to team projects in a meaningful way.

Genres: Writing, School, Nonfiction, Reference

141 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Claire Keck-Burke]

A literal waste of my time

[Audrey]

There's nothing I hate more than working in groups. However, I think this book serves a decent guide for working in groups. Specifically, I like the examples of documents. The team charter example is excellent for setting up your own documentation. The formatting of the book with headings and bulleted lists also makes it easy to skim for relevant information. The last chapter detailing various problems that may occur during a group project and possible solutions can be helpful to consult. However, I felt like this book was outdated and not written for students. It feels very much like it was written for teachers or professors to assign reading from. I don't think the writing connects very much to students as the audience. It's certainly very instructional, but not very familiar. I wish the writing felt more geared toward students or that students had been involved in the writing process. I often felt like I was being talked down to. I think team writing can be a sensitive topic because no one likes to think they're a bad group member. Being assigned this book as a reading feels like you can't even handle a group project. However, for students who have never done a group project with this level of documentation, the book can be helpful as a guide of sorts. In the future, I would love to see more documentation examples for setting up the group project for success. Overall, I like the examples, but the writing wasn't compelling or student friendly.

[Tj]

This book is a great resource. I use it in my Working in Virtual Teams course. It provides great examples of documents, discusses how to set up an effective team, and deals with the hard topics of dealing with conflicts on a team and handling/giving criticism.

I would love to see a revised edition to possibly bring in a few nuances from working in online teams.

[Isabelle | Nine Tale Vixen]

Possibly the most practical, actually helpful textbook I've read this year. Lots of useful templates for documents, emails, and even worksheets to optimize the in-class-groupwork experience, as well as multiple methods to have constructive discussions (even when members disagree).