ABSTRACT
Collaborative writing has been an important part of academic research yet has been relatively unexplored (at least in our discipline) as a form of academic activity in and of itself. Since the final product is virtually indistinguishable from single authored work, the actual process of collaboration might appear as merely the practical matter of divvying up the work among authors and thus a technical issue that does not merit any particular analysis or examination. Indeed, when one thinks of collaboration in an academic setting the standard models most often entail arrangements in which some form of a division of labour is either explicitly or implicitly agreed upon. Among the standard models, one could think of a division by areas of specialization, turn-taking, or a form of refereed writing where authors react to something that has already been written (Hewett et al. 2010: 10–11). However, if the circumstances are propitious, a third more involved option of collaborative writing is available: one that entails the actual process of writing together, in real time, sentence by sentence, from the beginning of a text to its end. Despite what are some of its challenges and what could be perceived as an added burden to the writing phase of the research design, it has been our experience that this third approach is the most fruitful and rewarding in terms of developing rigorous and engaging scholarship and fostering an intellectual camaraderie over a long-term collaborative relationship. Beyond the written work that has been produced, the actual process of writing with this form of collaboration has become inextricable from the longstanding and sustained intellectual engagement that we share.1
