While reading Rebecca Ingalls’s article, Writing “Eyeball to Eyeball”: Building a Successful Collaboration, I was inspired to reflect on my own experiences with group work, particularly the emotions I had felt throughout the collaboration process. As Ingalls identified the many potential benefits of teamwork in both academic and professional settings while also addressing the fact that collaboration can often come with many challenges for the involved members, her points prompted me to dive deeper into the positive and negative aspects of group work to become familiar with the root causes of my views on this subject. Although I personally have never truly enjoyed group work due to the feelings of the workload never truly being evenly distributed and the overwhelming difficulty that is associated with finding agreed-upon times and decisions that work for all members, I am still able to recognize the significance of collaboration. Regardless of these past experiences, I can confidently say that it is crucial for me to maintain an open mind in the future when collaborative work is presented to me since there is always the possibility that I will work with individuals who aid in making the process productive, fair, and successful for all.
Ingalls stated, “Though you may be most accustomed to writing on your own, the high-impact, innovative possibilities of collaborative writing can spotlight and enhance who you are as an individual, and how creative and original you can be, when you allow your ideas to mix and develop with others’ ideas.” This quote, in particular, stood out to me as I have never before viewed academic collaboration through this lens. Now, this could be because I have yet to experience a truly effective and enjoyable group work project or because I may have a slightly tainted view of group work because of my past experiences with it. Either way, I feel that under the right circumstances and working with individuals who are willing to all put in equal time, effort, and communication, I may be able to reap the full benefits of collaboration as I have not been able to previously.
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