How People Write Together

Builders of groupware writing technologies need a better understanding of collaborative writing if their systems are to adequately address user needs. This paper presents a taxonomy of joint writing based on an analysis of interviews with authors who have written documents together. The taxonomy describes joint writing in terms of four components: roles played in the collaboration, activities performed in the writing process, document control methods used, and writing strategies employed. The paper concludes by outlining a set of design requirements for collaborative writing that are suggested by the interviews and the taxonomy, and by evaluating six existing systems with respect to these requirements.