Contribution to Book
Commitment-Driven Co-Authoring
Scholarly Publication in a Changing Landscape: Models for Success
(2014)
Abstract
In our experience collaborating—with each other and with others—we have come to see again and again that shared commitment is what really drives collaboration, what makes it possible. Lack of shared commitment (or voicing of, explicit agreement on, or even evident effort toward enacting shared commitment) seems to underlie co-authoring experiences that go awry. In this way, co-authoring is not about a procedural division of labor; rather, it is about expressing and trusting our shared commitment and learning the strengths of each collaborator so that we can draw on—lean into—each others’ strengths to move ourselves and the current project forward. Coming to a clear understanding of each aspect of the project is, of course, essential to our process. It is not that everyone necessarily does equal work, but instead equitable (fair, agreed-upon, and recognized as important) work, which means that everyone is fully acting from their strengths and embodying stated, shared, and agreed on commitments. In other words, no one displays an attitude of deferral or waiting for others to assign tasks; everyone has full agency and ownership over the project.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2014
Editor
Lynée Lewis Gaillet and Letizia Guglielmo
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
Citation Information
Tanya Cochran, Rasha Diab, Beth Godbee and Thomas Ferrel. "Commitment-Driven Co-Authoring" New YorkScholarly Publication in a Changing Landscape: Models for Success (2014) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/beth_godbee/21/