Coauthoring is a collaborative process whereby multiple authors create the content of a written work. Coauthoring is very common in modern academic works, and in some fields is the norm. Coauthoring is often necessary because completing a given work may require broader expertise, equipment or resources than a single author can provide. Coauthorship may also occur for more political reasons, sometimes leading to controversy (see authorship).
Coauthorship may occur in a live, synchronous mode, (i.e. two or more people sitting side by side at a table, or working over the phone, or using synchronous document sharing), or in an asynchronous mode, (sending a document back and forth by mail or email, or by using a wiki).
A common practice in academic and research writing, coauthoring is a longstanding and important method in the ongoing development of human knowledge. Although a technique that is likely to be as old as writing itself, coauthoring is taking on new characteristics in wiki based, mass collaborative environments such as Wikipedia and Meta Collab.