Using Collaborative Software for Team Writing

According to Wikipedia -Collaborative software (also referred to as groupware) is computer software designed to help people involved in a common task achieve goals. One of the earliest definitions of “collaborative software” is, "intentional group processes plus software to support them.”

In this globalization world, a company wants to establish business in different parts of the world and they have to do regular meetings for this. If a company wants to grow in today's world, they have to work in teams. With the help of computer and internet they can do meetings without going anywhere. If an employees or workers of a company can’t meet physically, they can meet through computers and do their teamwork. There are different tools for doing these types of meetings like web conferencing or online meeting. Team members can share files and documents very easily and quickly.

Designing and Producing Professional –Looking document, Presentations, and Web Pages

All software now include a large selection of different character sizes, styles, italics, boldface, symbols and styling techniques to aid you in producing consistent formatting and professional looking result. Presentation software enables you to incorporate showy slides effect, color, sounds, pictures and even movies into your talks for management or customers.

Following are the ways for creating professional presentations: -
• Don’t copy and paste slides from different sources.
• Keep the design very basic and simple. It shall not distract.
• Carefully select font sizes for headers and text.
• Consistently use the same font face and sizes on all slides.
• If you want to play with colors, keep it easy on the eyes and always keep good contrast in mind so that your readers do not have to strain to guess what you’ve typed on your slide.
• Keep It Straight and Simple.(KISS)
• Keywords only.
• No sentences!
• Use animations to clarify a model or emphasize an effect.
• Keep Your Audience In Mind.

Adding Graphics for Emphasis

Your letters, memos and reports may be improved by the addition of graphs and artwork to clarify and illustrate data. In a company where you have to write letters, memos and reports for presentation you should be able to use this artwork to give a professional view to the presentation. Clip-art is also available to symbolize or illustrate ideas.



You are able to import the following:
• Charts
• Diagrams
• Spreadsheets
• Databases
• Graphics

Improving Correctness and Precision

More or less all word processing software give features that catch and accurate spelling and grammatical mistakes. Grammar checkers recognize several errors in capitalization, word use, double negatives, verb use, sentence structure, number style, and other writing mistakes. As you type, Word processor will tell you if make spelling or grammar mistakes by inserting a zigzag red, green, or blue line below the text that word processor thinks is an error. Red underline indicates either a possible spelling error or Word doesn't recognize a word, such as a proper name or place. Green underline indicates about grammatical mistake or fragment error. Blue underline indicates that a word is not spelled correctly. MS Word includes a standard dictionary against which it checks your spelling and grammar.

Outlining and Organizing Ideas

An outline is a great way to organize your thoughts and study. It provides an overall view to display and arrange your ideas. It can be useful for preparing a speech, essay and even useful as a handy tool for memorization while studying.

Most word processors include some form of "outliner", a feature that enables you to divide a topic into hierarchical order with main points and sub points. The use of the computer in this way is that your computer keeps track of the levels of ideas automatically so that you can easily add, cut, or rearrange points in the outline.

Collecting Information Electronically

Collecting information electronically is one of the ways you can improve your writing messages, oral presentation and web pages. In this computer helps us in the following ways:

• Computer enables us to search for data and information through the internet quickly and easily.

• An employee or worker in an informational economy can find information quickly. 

• Information about everything in world is now accessible in databases or on the web easily.

• If you want to give a presentation you can find the information about the topic on internet through search engines such as Google or Yahoo.

• For writing messages you can see the format of the letters, memo or essays on the internet.

Fighting writer’s block

What is Writer's Block?

According to Wikipedia, Writer’s Block is “a condition, associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task in hand. At the other extreme, some "blocked" writers have been unable to work for years on end, and some have even abandoned their careers.”

Writer's block is something that a lot of people face. In my point of view a writer's block is a normal happening that comes to a writer's life. Even to the most gifted and experienced ones. Writer's block is a state in which you have met a fatigue of your imaginative ideas. This happens when you try to extract ideas but it seems like that you have reached to a dead end. Have you ever experienced staring blankly in front of your laptop or a piece of paper? This experience is so frustrating to most of us especially when the dead line is fast approaching. You might feel so helpless and disappointed.

REASONS

It has no particular reasons; its origins and effects vary greatly from person to person, just like enthusiasm and smartness vary from one writer to another.  Annoyance or unhappiness may affect a writer’s efforts.

Now the main question arises, how computer help’s?

You might be worry how to start, where to begin and how to write it. In this case computer will help you generate your idea and combined everything together for you. Computer will help you fight writer's block because word processor enable ideas to flow smoothly from your brain to a screen, you can expect fewer delays resulting from writer's block but word processor would still help you to get the job done. Also, you can use computer to compose rapidly, and you can experiment with structure and polishing your promising thoughts.

Introduction of SEVEN ways

Being understand what computer is and what are its features; now we will look at the ways how computers can help us in writing documents, oral presentations and web pages. Although computers can’t actually do the writing for you, they provide powerful tools that make composition process easier and the results more professional.
Following are the seven ways:

1. Fighting Writer’s block.
2. Collecting Information electronically.
3. Outlining and organizing ideas.
4. Improving correctness and precision.
5. Adding graphics for emphasis.
6. Designing and producing professional-looking
 documents, presentations and web pages.
7. Using collaborative software for team writing.

Computers in Professional Life

Electronic commerce or e-commerce refers to business doing electronically. In this, we can sell or buy things through computers via internet. E-Commerce is by no means a new concept, even though with the internet, the use of e-commerce has increased dramatically. E-commerce has been implemented in different sectors of business like in banking sector; we can transfer the funds electronically. This means that all the transactions are paperless and by use of electronic means such as EDI (electronic data interchange), electronic mail, bulletin boards, fax transmissions, electronic fund transfers and the internet.

Benefits:

• Lower product costs
• Higher profit margins
• Better customer service
• Teamwork
• Productivity gains
• Information sharing, convenience and control

UNIQUE FEATURE OF COMPUTER

Internet is a feature through which we can interrelate to each other. To mention a few of the resources, there are electronic mail (e-mail), file transferring and sharing, online chat, and gaming. The Internet allows people from around the world to share knowledge, ideas, and experiences in any field. 
Advantages of internet:

Faster Communication
• You can communicate in a fraction of second with a person who is sitting in the other part of the world.
• For more personal and interactive communication, you can avail the facilities of chat services, video conferencing and so on.
• It has become very easy to establish a kind of global friendship where you can share your thoughts and explore other cultures.


Information Resources
• Information is probably the biggest advantage that Internet offers.
• Any kind of information on any topic is available on the Internet like government laws and services, trade fairs and conferences, market information, new ideas and technical support etc.
• The search engines like Google, Yahoo are at your service on the Internet.


Entertainment
• Downloading games or just surfing the celebrity websites are some of the uses people.
• There are numerous games that can be downloaded from the Internet for free.


Online Services
• Internet has made life very convenient.
• You can book tickets for a movie, pay utility bills, taxes etc., and right from your home.

The World under Finger Tips

A computer is an electronic device that stores and processes data, according to a list of instructions. It allows a user to manipulate data very easily. The speed of performance of a computer is incomparable. The computer and Internet have affected our way of learning, working, storing information, communicating, playing, and also writing. In fact, computers are used in every sphere of life today.

There are several ways computer can help us in our daily as well as in professional life.

• Exploring writer’s idea: Computers can help to compose your ideas or message and allows modifying it in as many ways as u can.

• Organizing the idea: There are software’s which helps in arranging the content of the topic and it also helps in editing the article.

• Storage device: We can store as number of files in the memory of the computer which is hard to memorize by the individual. We can secure the documents with the specific password.

• Communication device: Computer can act as communicating device in various ways. For example: - Web conferencing, video calling via internet.

• Designing the PowerPoint presentations: Computer can help the professionals in making the PowerPoint slides in a very effective way.