Typical Problems with Group-Written Documents Main Problem Each individual in the group sees himself as responsible for only a small piece of the whole. The individuals in the group fail to understand the design, scheduling, and production of the entire document and consequently write and schedule their own pieces of the whole according to their own departmental standards and priorities, not according to the standards and priorities of the group project. Eight More Problems   1. The document addresses different audiences and different purposes between sections. 2. Parts of the document overlap in coverage, with the same material being treated more than once and not always in the same way. 3. Parts of the document are not consistent with other parts in terms of their structure, content, and design. 4. Parts of the document are not consistent with other parts in terms of style, terminology, and method of address to the audience. 5. The document is graphically and physically inconsistent from section to section. 6. The time available for correction, editing, and production is substantially underestimated and therefore the final draft appears unfinished. 7. Sections of the document do not get written until the last minute (if at all) because no one has had apparent responsibility to write them. This is especially true of preliminaries such as the cover page, abstract, table of contents, lists of figures and tables, and acknowledgements. 8. Many of these problems stem from the fact that the responsibilities for parts of group-written documents are usually assigned in terms of subject matter, not in terms of parts of the document.

Adapted from Mathes & Stevenson, Designing Technical Reports, 1991