• I have written almost no papers.
• I have not deployed any of these ideas in groups of more than 3
• Everybody has an opinion on how to write and nobody wants to change.

(btw - You can view this presentation at https://joereddington.com/paperwriting/)

• Lots of papers die in inboxes and we should talk about that wasted effort.
• I do know quite a bit about collaborative writing in other settings
• We need to have the conversion as a group and agree some terms.

• Four people believing they are doing 30% of the work, when they are really doing 20%
• Nobody wants to write the first draft.
• Where is it going? When?
• I did the last version
• Author order
• Waiting for Important Professor to look at it

Result

• Paper dies quietly in three inboxes.

• You must create the conditions for collaborative writing
• Solving the hardest problems as early as possible
• Make as many implicit things explicit as early as possible
• Get your "No" answers as early as possible

This is bad:

Hey, you guys want to write a paper about our work with me? We'd probably send it to one of the journals in psychology?

The person who wrote this hasn't bothered to solve any of the hard problems.

Let's change one thing:

Yo, you guys want to write a paper about our work for IEEE Transactions on Transactional Analysis of Banking Transactions? The next deadline is 3rd of March, which gives us three weeks.

We can do better:

Yo, you guys want to write a paper about our work for IEEE Transactions on Transactional Analysis of Banking Transactions? The next deadline is 3rd of March, which gives us three weeks. If we miss that deadline I'd like to send it to the International Conference on Banking Transactions, which has a deadline of 10th March. If ITTABT rejects it, then we'd have two weeks to revise before we could send it to the National Conference on Banking Transactions on 19th October.

The author of this version has done some work. Deadlines have been established. Failsafes built in. I'm confident this won't die in a drawer.

Let's head off another issue:

... rejects it, then we'd have two weeks to revise before we could send it to the National Conference on Banking Transactions on 19th October.
I'm proposing an author list of Walters, Williams, van Dyne.

We'd like to pretend this is never an issue and yet we've all dealt with it.

• Creating the conditions
• Solving the hardest problems as early as possible
• Make as many implicit things explicit as early as possible
• Get your "No" answers as early as possible

These things will continue to come up as we move forward.

• Every person in the group should have a role. Why did you invite them? What do they bring?

I see our contributions as my take on international Banking, Williams' wider view on interdimensional banking and Walters' expertise in transactional analysis.

• There are necessary roles as well.
  • Destination
  • Diagrams/LaTeX
  • Experiments

I'm happy to handle managing all the submission prep if Banner can be our code expert.

Here's a selection:

• Four people expecting to do 25% of the work.
• Nobody wants to write the first draft.
• I did the last version

How do I solve that in fiction?

• This is a sprint
• The writers in the same place (can(ish) be zoom) at the same time.
• Need a collaborative writing platform (drive, dropbox, etherpad, overleaf, idc)
• You all give equal time.
• Never a time when you don't have stuff to do.
• They are fun, but they are still work and you need a few of them

Looking at the submission guidelines, I think we probably need three three hour sprints to really crush this. If everybody is in, then I'll send a Doddle poll out.

Hi Tony, I'm looking for a favour. I've got a writing sprint coming up on the 5th June and I need a proofread before the next one on the 7th, would you be able to help?

Then...

Thanks so much! The link to the group folder is here and it's yours from 2pm.

You will need:

• Structural reviewer (Selected by the author with the destination role)
• Ideally your structural reviewer would give feedback at the start of the next sprint.
• Prose reviewer
• Several proofreaders.

Long-term review network

• If Reviewer 2 is pointing out things that your internal review network didn't find, then you need to upgrade your internal review network.

Because the first thing you need is a structure.

• Produce a set of bullet points for your paper. Review and revise until you agree. Then produce more.

• Keep adding bullet points until you have one per paragraph that you expect in the final paper.

• Other people (your structural reviewer) should be able to read the bullet points and understand (if not believe) your paper.
• You will want to jump around when bulleting. That's cool, that's the point
• People remove your great ideas.

• Keep them in the loop.
• Build evidence of approval
• Be clear how hard you are working.
• Arrange to present (NOT email) to them after every sprint.
• "If you don't get anything from me by X, consider it fine"

• Specification: create the conditions
• Specialisation: everybody has a role
• Structure: NO wasted effort
• Sprint: everybody in the room.

• Also please let me manage your paper writing process...