We've got some mojo cookin' in Pittsburgh on this front. In our DAWG discussions last fall, a common theme was how the co-authorship issue is an important one for debate scholars to tackle, because the disconnect between modes of knowledge production in academic debate (mostly collaborative) and rhetorical scholarship (mostly lone work) is a gulf that makes it difficult for some debaters to make the transition from debater/coach to productive scholar. Our guidelines (posted in the comment section of the above mojo link) respond to that exigence, and we're happy to report that our first collaborative effort on a forum piece is forthcoming in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. We built language from our group's co-authorship guidelines into the biographical statement accompanying the article:

Debate as a Weapon of Mass Destruction

Eric English, Stephen Llano, Gordon R. Mitchell, Catherine E. Morrison,
John Rief, and Carly Woods

Abstract: This essay examines the perceptions and realities of how the technique of academic switch-side debating can pose a threat to entrenched discourses of homeland security. Using the public controversy surrounding the 1954 intercollegiate debate topic as a point of departure, we explore how principles of debate practice can favorably shape public deliberation. A cautionary strain of our analysis unfolds as we consider how the debate technique can be misappropriated to justify violence in the name of democracy.

Keywords: Debate, democracy, homeland security, McCarthyism, military tribunals.

Biographical statement: This essay grew out of collaborative research by the Schenley Park Debate Authors Working Group (DAWG), a consortium of public argument scholars at University of Pittsburgh. Founded in 2005, the Schenley Park DAWG strives to generate rigorous scholarship addressing the role of argumentation and debate in society. First author Eric English led work on this DAWG essay, while the co-authors each contributed substantially in areas of conceptual design, research, and writing. Gordon Mitchell is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh. Each of the other co-authors is a graduate student in the Department of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh. All are past or present Pitt debate coaches.

We'd like to give a DAWG bark-out to Barbara Biesecker, forum editor at CCCS, for being so supportive about the co-authorship idea. And we'd love to get feedback on our Schenley Park DAWG guidelines and hear about similar initiatives to generate guidelines in the field.

Gordo
http://www.pitt.edu/~gordonm/

And the exigency behind them bespeaks an anxiety that is thick here (and elsewhere) at UT Austin: the move to the "business model." "Team projects" inspire "social-science-phobia" because I think many fear it is the tail wagging the dog. The elitist, virtuoso critic model of rhetorical studies thrives on the kind of freedom of object-choice that such team-projects prima facie seem to threaten. I'm not saying that they do, actually, it's just my hunch that rhetoricians fear the multi-authored project because it represents what our fellow Texan Roy Orbison once sang: "workin for The Man."

I know that doesn't answer the question, though. One thing that would have to change in a larger, structural sense is the first-author bias of senior colleagues in rhetorical studies (at least on the comm studies side). When one sees one of the Condit et al.'s eight authored thingies, the bias is to think that Condit did it and everyone else jumped on (or perhaps made a comment in an elevator and, wham, they appeared as an author). Even when I co-author something with someone my own seniors would prefer my name go first (even though we usually work "evenly"). I think Sloop and Ono/Ono and Sloop used to write "each author contributed equally to this essay" in the author note, which signals the probelm with the first-author bias.

As for socializing students: we need to co-author with our students more. I've tried to do this the minute I got a job, taking on a project with a student every other year or so. It's still my personal practice to do so. Working with someone through the process is great for them--and for me. It is truly the case two minds are better than one, and I would say my best work has been done in concert with another.

Second, there are some good examples of larger team projects. UGA, I believe, received a massive grant to do analyses of tobacco company documents. For some this may represent the tail wagging the dog, but for others--especially the grads working on the project--it's a great way to learn about publishing. Barry Brummett here at UT pitched an edited book project to a publisher, almost every chapter of which is written by a graduate student. I think the project got a green light, and students have been really enjoying the process (so they tell me).

Regarding the latter: perhaps this is a good way for the soli(d)tary and brutish rhetorician to socialize folks into publication? Why not start turning these big RSA and NCA panels and summer workshops into book projects? It's not like we're overflowing with edited book collections in rhetorical studies. And Taylor and Francies seems to publish an edited collection faster than Microsoft issues software patches.

Heck: there's been some neat posts on the blog here from grads and not-so-long-ago grads that might make for a good, first ever edited blogora book project. One could post every step of the process on the blog and make the whole deal transparent (provided a given publisher would not mind the transparency).