Implementation of a Gameboard Approach for Team-Based Manuscript Development

Research is often conducted in teams, which allows for greater collaboration across disciplines and institutions. However, the team-based approach can present challenges for manuscript writing, including ineffective management, clashing writing styles, and varying levels of coauthor involvement.¹  Unclear communication can result in confusion regarding the division of tasks, decreased productivity, and a manuscript that may be redundant or missing important information.²  These obstacles may extend and delay the writing process or prevent manuscript submission. Publishing papers in peer-reviewed journals is a vital way to disseminate research findings. Therefore, it is crucial to make collaborative writing easier for teams to share their research and advance knowledge in their respective fields. To streamline the collaborative writing process, we present the gameboard method, a strategy to organize and distribute responsibility for writing sections for a final manuscript (Figure).

The gameboard was developed at Duke University (by author B.G.) to...