A Bakhtinian Exploration of Factors Affecting the Collaborative Writing of an Executive Letter of an Annual Report

This ethnographic study identifies and analyzes 16 factors that influenced a largely unsuccessful collaborative writing process in a nonacademic setting, the 77-day production of a two-page executive letter of an annual report. The language theory of Bakhtin (1981) is used to explain how these factors operated together as forces impelled by the social context of the process. Data were collected during a fivemonth participant observation and were qualitatively analyzed with methods described by Miles and Huberman (1984). While previous studies have focused upon successful collaborations, this one focuses on important drawbacks of peer and hierarchical editing in a realworld context. For several years now, more college students have majored in business than in any other discipline ("Survey," 1989; National Center for Educational Statistics, 1988). Teachers of writing who wish to prepare students for careers in business and other professions need to consider how writing in non-academic settings gets done. While important research has been conducted, as Odell and Goswami (1985) tell us, "we still have much to learn about writing in the workplace" (p. x). Extensive survey research on real-world writing indicates that many employees work with others on a document, either as part of a groupwriting team (Lunsford & Ede, 1986, p. 6) or by delegating or ghostwriting (Anderson, 1985, p. 50). Harwood (1982) reports that 60 percent of his respondents had been asked to give editorial advice within the previous two weeks. Yet while group writing is a significant component of real-world work, only a few published descriptive studies on the subject exist (Allen, Atkinson, Morgan, Moore, & Snow, 1987, p. 70). One of the few, conducted by Paradis, Dobrin, and Miller (1985), does not describe specific instances of collaboration. LaRouche and Pearson's description of collaboration is the description of professionals participating in a This study was supported in part by an Ohio State University Alumni Research Award. I am grateful to Professors Edward PJ. Corbett, John Stewart, Mary Rosner, and Kitty Locker for their invaluable assistance. A related study by the author will appear in Spilka, R. (Ed.), (in press). Writing in the workplace: New research perspectives. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illnois University Press. Research in the Teaching of English, Vol. 24, No. 2, May 1990