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[snape]

Having always written alone am coauthoring a paper with a colleague for the first time. We have got together a reasonable draft, but we are aware that more work needs doing on parts of the paper, so we have divided this work up. I suppose that my question here concerns the process of polishing the paper up when it is nearly ready to send. What do you and your colleagues do? Does one person take responsibility for sorting out the paper in its final stages, or do you both physically sit down at the computor and move paragraphs about, rephrase things etc., or something else?

[busyslinky]

It depends on whether the colleague is physically close. 

For colleagues that are near enough, I have sitten down with them and we have a hard copy each and go page by page.  One of us takes the lead and the other will fill any gaps the first could not.

But, sometimes most of mine have been emailed back and forth with comments on things and explanations of final adjustments.  Lots of colors are usually used (blue is addition, red is change, yellow shading is unsure if we should keep) and of course all the comments.

[epistephiliac]

In my coauthoring experiences, we have traded drafts electronically, making extensive use of Word's commenting feature. We also have occasional face-to-face meetings to discuss general ideas, directions, etc., but the minutiae are all handled in this way. So far, it's worked pretty smoothly.

I don't think two people sitting at the computer is an efficient use of time, but really, it depends on the personal working style of the authors involved. It would drive me crazy, because I like to think about sentences and paragraphs when editing, and play with them a little before settling on the final wording. That doesn't work very well with another person present. People who work differently might find it more productive to do even the editing together.

On preview: we have worked this way even though we're both on the same campus. As I said, I think it depends a lot on personal preference.

[snape]

Thanks for the swift reply busylinky.

My colleague is physically close, about 6 feet away in fact. I realise that I has forgotton to mention this in my question!

[case_insensitive]

The "track-changes" thingie in Word is helpful if you are trading electronic copies back and forth.

Mostly I have co-authored with people who are not physically near. We just trade off the file for X number of days.  "Here, you work on it this week and I'll do it next week," or whatever.

If you are pressed for time, then "you do parts A and B, and I'll edit parts C and D" and then one of you has to be responsible for getting the edited parts together in the final version.

I'm usually the final version person, but then I always send it back for a final read just to be sure.

[offthemarket]

Different co-authors have different preferred methods, either track-changes, or a set of comments embedded, or making a new file.  I'm flexible.

A new possibility an online word processing in Google in which multiple people can edit documents at the same time.  The reason this is good for coauthoring, is that there's never the problem of two people editing the same document, in different directions, at the same time.  It tells you who is editing the document when you are working on it as well, and the changes are real-time.  If you're talking on the phone/skype, then two people could hammer out a paragraph together if they so choose.

I've only used this shared spreadsheet function, for the same reason that multiple parties can enter new data without the fear of overwriting other data.  Also, all versions in the past are stored.

This is google's foray into trying to replace not just microsoft, but the notion that software is something that you have to pay for and has to live on your computer.   If you don't want to buy word, then just use googledocs and save it as a .doc folks who do use word.

[scotia]

I am doing this at the moment, with a colleague. We are working serially, but talk on the phone to clarify points and generally encourage one another. We use track changes once there is a reasonably stable form of the paper (it gets too messy in early drafts). We would work the same way if we were in adjacent offices - as others have commented, even when we are together we find sitting around a computer screen to be very inefficient so we only meet to discuss big ideas.

I have used this way of working for several years. The person with the best grammar does the last check and ensures that the style is consistent throughout.

[larryc]

I have used the track changes feature in Word as well.  Next time, however, I will encourage my coauthor to use a wiki.  Have you seen Google's Writerly? It is a very robust online word processor where you can share documents. It handles advanced formatting and footnotes and is exportable to Word format.

http://docs.google.com/

[athena1]

In the past, I have sat down and actually written with co-authors, but usually, we email back and forth these days and use track changes. We divide the work, set deadlines to meet and share. Usually the first author takes responsibility for putting the final thing together and editing, though it may be sent back and forth at the end for editing. The first authors submits.

[busyslinky]

Does anyone here know how to remove 'reviewer' names from the track changes menu?  Some journals want documents that are blind and in some cases when turn on the track changes utility I can see my name and other names on the reviewer portion of the menu.  I have tried turning the track changes off and on, but the names are still there.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[case_insensitive]

Does anyone here know how to remove 'reviewer' names from the track changes menu?  Some journals want documents that are blind and in some cases when turn on the track changes utility I can see my name and other names on the reviewer portion of the menu.  I have tried turning the track changes off and on, but the names are still there.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Go to Tools, Options and User Information.  Isn't that where Track Changes is getting your info?  If so, just delete all that info.

[helpful]

For initial drafts I use a wiki with my co-authors. Since the formatting is basic, and my articles require a lot of special formatting, at a certain time we revert to exchanging electronic versions. The nice thing about co-authoring that way is you can 'complete' a revision, send it off, and then when you get the new revision from your co-author you have fresh eyes to look at the text before revising again.

[larryc]

Does anyone here know how to remove 'reviewer' names from the track changes menu? 

You could also save your final version as a PDF and send that.  I use PrimoPDF but there are a lot of free programs that do the same.

[busyslinky]

Case: I tried the removing user information (from the tool options menu), but reviewer names are still there.  I'll have to see how it works with many reviewers.

LarryC: I do have a PDF converter from Word and will go that route in the future, just want to make sure all properties are off of the PDF document too and I'm not as familiar with that software.

[snape]

Thank you all for your answers.
I have told colleagues on another project about the docs.google and we have set up a page ready to use. It seems like a really good idea.
Thanks again
Snape