Group assignments are largely considered to be a necessary evil by many students. After all, these collaborative tasks can often devolve into finger-pointing and passive aggressive message threads, with some group members being concerned about others not carrying their weight, and some just being utterly perplexed by the direction or ideas being posited by their fellow teammates.

But with a few mindful methods, you can actually enjoy a smooth and productive collaborative process for your group assignments. Whether you’re writing an academic report with fellow authors, preparing for a group presentation, or perhaps a bit of both, this guide will help you and your teammates get the very best out of one another.

Use Online Collaborative Tools

Gone are the days of huddled scribblings around square desks and fluorescent lighting. Today you can work as a team without even being in the same country. Cloud sharing, online databases, chatrooms, collaborative work pages, and more can be used by all your team members at once and from anywhere. Using tools like Adobe Acrobat, you can even get creative with notes in .docx file formats and convert to PDF so that you can distribute uniform notes or instructions across all your teammates. It’s all about working smarter, not harder – and with these technologies, you can ensure that even remote teams maintain a collective and synced approach.

Practically any tool you need for working in a team can be done online today, and they’re all indispensable ways to save time. The one caveat is that there are so many, so be sure to agree with your team about the programs that you’ll be using together– and check that they can integrate with each other too.

Be Careful When Composing Your Team

While it’s true that you don’t always have this luxury, it should be the first thing you consider when preparing to work in a team. Ask yourself, do these people have similar academic goals and interests? Can they work together respectfully and communicate efficiently? Do their skills complement each other and aid in the work you’re hoping to complete?

If you can’t find these common denominators between yourself and your teammates, then start with a foundational basis (i.e. you’re all taking the same class). If you do have different interests and goals outside of this project, then that’s okay, because diversity is a superpower in itself. Just like a soccer team, you’ll need a range of different positions to fill, but they all need to be able to gel together during the working process. So long as everybody’s role allows them to play to their strengths, there should be no issue. And if you do foresee issues within your team, address them before work begins, so that they can be resolved before they lead to major issues later.

Agree Explicitly On Roles And Responsibilities

Academic reports are no walk in the park, and require hard work and deft organisation. When responsibilities and roles aren’t explicitly stated and detailed, work can be left unfinished in all the hustle and bustle.

So once you and your team understand the requirements of the work you’ll be undertaking, sit down together to write out every necessity and assign them to team members. Do not assign anything to multiple members, even for complex work, because it’s too easy to assume that the other will handle it. Instead assign a member who will be leading the work, and subordinates who will aid it.

Recheck, Revise, Review

Did you know that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone took fifteen drafts before publishers were interested? Yes, it’s important to remember that half of communication is about how you say it, not what you say. And the same goes for your results. Don’t be sure you’ve written every detail and data point perfectly on your first go– double check and be doubly sure. Adopt tools like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor to improve the flow and grammar of your work. Once you’ve done all you can, hand it off to someone else to start again.

Reach Out For Feedback And Support

During highly focused work, it’s easy to fall into tunnel vision and to neglect important details that seem obvious, but will confound readers. Because of this, you should be seeking revisions and critique from other team members– if you’re working against a deadline, be sure to set aside a revision period or multiple.

The added benefit of this approach is that it doubles as a way to keep your team informed, and to celebrate each other’s successes. So be sure to see these revisions sessions as opportunities to build morale, as all too often receiving critique can be demotivating.

Finally, remember to have your work read by outside readers. For example, if you’re publishing for the layman, you‘ll need to be sure that a layman can actually understand what your report is about.

Maintain Academic Integrity

Plagiarism does not only devalue other people’s hard work, but it weakens your own report. This is because anything you’re copying and not referencing properly appears completely unfounded. Or you may be drawing conclusions that do not fit your results neatly.

So rather than plagiarise, take inspiration from others, reference appropriately, and write in words that you know reflect your findings. Be sure to espouse these values in your teammates, and to query any details lacking citation. It will save you from ethical issues and validity concerns further down the track.

Conclusion

An academic report can be just as taxing as publishing a book, and requires many of the same skills. And if you’re looking to enjoy a career as an academic, then your student years are the perfect time to familiarise yourself with co-authoring research papers. Collaborative writing is a vital skill for academics, after all.

Alongside this, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that collaborative project-based learning grows more than just your writing skills, or even your familiarity with the subject matter of that report or the course. These group projects also equip us with collaborative skills that we can use throughout the rest of our professional lives – from university to the workplace and beyond. So enter into every group project with an open mind!

Also Read: How Can A Student Make Essay Writing Easier For Themselves?