Anna, Lin, and Tom: From communication breakdown to breakthrough

How strategic edits can unblock stuck coauthored projects

Customer Starting Point

“I’m not sure we need to subject Catie to this type of… discussion.”

I was on the tensest Zoom call I’ve ever joined, shocked at what I was hearing—and it must have shown in my face.

Three business school professors and coauthors were hurling insults at each other while I watched from my virtual corner, and one of them had just broken in with the above reminder of my presence. 

Not many academic editors anticipate playing mediator, but more end up in this position than you might think. Writing and research are deeply personal activities; threats to one’s work can feel deeply personal too, leading to hurt feelings and contentious reactions.

I’d been brought into this project midway through what was already a strained collaboration. The three coauthors—each accomplished in their own right—had been working on a joint manuscript for well over a year. But what began as a promising partnership had gradually unraveled into misalignment, stalled progress, and frustration. 

• Tom, the most senior coauthor and the one who’d contacted me, had several other stressful projects on his plate and limited time to contribute to this one. He was also changing jobs at the end of the year and had countless loose ends to tie up before then, including (he hoped) this draft.
  

• Lin, an economics professor, was contributing work that his two coauthors didn’t feel was in line with the standard they were aiming for. His model was fraught with presentation issues that made it difficult to integrate into the draft’s broader theoretical framework, and his contributions even contained some instances of what most English-language journals would label plagiarism. 

• Anna, the most junior coauthor, was tasked with managing this project and writing most of the paper. Increasingly frustrated with (from her perspective) Tom’s lack of commitment and Lin’s lack of rigor, she felt increasingly burned out and taken for granted, which made effective communication much harder.

By the time I saw the draft, communication between its authors had effectively broken down. Comments in the margins contradicted one another. Entire sections had been rewritten multiple times in noticeably different “voices.” Key arguments were being debated not through discussion, but through edits layered on top of edits—red slashes and “corrections” that amounted to violent hacking at each other’s work.

Naturally, the paper read as fundamentally fragmented and confusing. And yet, there was still a compelling research question and valuable answers to it hidden under the squabbling. 

The question now was whether anything could be salvaged from this project that had gone decidedly off the rails—which was why Tom had reached out to me in the first place.

Key Challenges in the Collaboration

Conflicting visions for the paper

Each coauthor had a different idea of what the paper was about and why it mattered. Tom and Anna emphasized theory, but from slightly different angles, while Lin prioritized the draft’s methodological contribution above all else. These weren’t minor differences that a proofread could smooth out; they shaped everything from the paper’s structure to the target journal choice. 

Communication breakdown

Instead of resolving disagreements through conversation, the authors had defaulted to asynchronous edits and comments. Over time, this created confusion, duplication, and, ultimately, more disagreement and frustration. Important decisions were never really agreed upon, but rather, imposed and then challenged indefinitely. The coauthors had also gone into the project without a clear understanding of everyone’s role and priorities (essential groundwork for successful collaborations).

Inconsistent voice and structure

The manuscript read like (at least) three separate papers stitched together. Terminology and tone shifted from section to section and conflicting information abounded. Some sections suffered from overciting, others from underciting. Even when the ideas were strong, they were buried under distracting inconsistencies that made the draft feel more like a scrapbook than a single convincing argument.

Emotional fatigue and loss of momentum

By this stage, confidence in the project had eroded. The authors weren’t just disheartened and frustrated, but conscious of being stuck. And once you’ve decided you’re stuck, it can be virtually impossible to get unstuck without outside help. 

Journey to a Solution

Before changing a thing about the actual manuscript, I asked each coauthor to briefly and individually tell me, as simply as possible, the “story” of this research: What was the urgent problem driving this research? How did it start? Who did it affect? Why was it essential to address this problem? How did the paper address it? Who/what would be better off with this paper existing, and how? 

Unsurprisingly, in their 1:1 calls, each author gave me very different answers to these questions.

These differences confirmed my sense that this wasn’t “just” an editing problem, but rather, a translation and alignment problem. My main job therefore became twofold:

• To reconstruct the paper into a coherent narrative that would resonate at the target journal (Management Science)

• To act as a neutral intermediary who could reflect each author’s intent back to the group in a clear, suitable way

In other words, I would be using effective communication to rebuild a shared understanding and vision of success for these coauthors.

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Implementation

I began by comparing and synthesizing the three different narratives that Anna, Lin, and Tom had shared with me in their separate calls. I used my research story spine template to organize their perspectives into one unifying story arc, then sent the result to each coauthor for feedback. 

Tom and Lin were delighted, but Anna had reservations: she still felt that too much hinged on a model that didn’t necessarily work. I asked her more questions about why and what she thought was missing, and then took these specific requests to Lin. Phrased as objective requests for more information from me—instead of criticisms from a colleague with whom he’d developed long-term difficulties—these emails went over well, and Lin was happy to take my feedback on board, given how clear it was that I was simply trying to strengthen this paper.

With additional support for the model, I recirculated the finished story spine to all three coauthors and got their approval; this was a narrative they could agree on. 

Next came the hard part: pulling apart the existing draft and mapping the pieces back onto the new blueprint for the revised paper. 

I rebuilt the paper with three priorities in mind:

1. A single unified argument and tone

I distilled the overlapping ideas and voices into one central contribution that all three authors could agree on. This became the anchor for every section that followed.

2. Consistent language and framing

I standardized key terms, clarified definitions, and ensured that concepts were introduced and developed in a logical sequence. This eliminated much of the contradiction and confusion. By the time Lin’s model was presented in the Methods section, the reader would now be well-prepared to understand it and its suitability.

3. Transparent editorial rationale

Wherever I made a nuanced decision rather than a simple correction, I flagged and explained it. Doing so meant that every coauthor could learn from this draft, and see exactly why my changes increased their chances of success at the target journal. This third-party focus on a stronger, more cohesive submission made cuts and alterations feel far less personal, shifting the tone of the revisions from “Whose version wins?” to “Does this version work?”

The Turning Point

The fully edited draft was transformed from the patchy collection of observations and inputs that I’d first seen. Now, it read like one powerful argument integrating various forms of expertise and support. 

The coauthors’ disagreements didn’t completely evaporate, but they became more focused and thus far easier to resolve, especially in collaboration with me. Anna, in particular, still had some concerns that we addressed by relabeling key terms and creating a new table that clarified the relationships among them. 

For the first time in months, the coauthors weren’t reacting to each other’s expectations and criticisms. They were cooperating (via me) to hone an almost-finished draft that reflected and linked all of their contributions. 

Critically, this meant that momentum returned and the project could finally move forward. 

After a second round of comprehensive edits by me (mainly to streamline, now that everyone’s contributions were included), the draft was finalized, approved by each author, and submitted.

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Results

Nearly 6 months after I first saw it, the paper by Anna, Lin, and Tom was published at Management Science. With two rounds of “The Works”-level edits completed in less than a month, it had been transformed from a stalled, fragmented draft into a cohesive and compelling manuscript.

What had once felt like a failing collaboration became a shared success.

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Key Takeaway: Edits Accelerate Communication of All Kinds

When coauthor collaborations break down, the issue is rarely just “bad writing” or subpar scholarship. More often, it’s a lack of shared understanding about goals, contributions, and direction.

Strategic editing can play a unique role in these situations by:

• Translating competing perspectives into a unified narrative

• Imposing consistency and clarity that reduces friction and misunderstanding

• Providing a neutral foundation for productive discussion

• Turning implicit disagreements into explicit, solvable decisions

  
  

In this case, editing restored the collaboration that had led these researchers to choose to work together in the first place. It also yielded an FT50 publication that benefited each of them.

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Takeaway

When personalities and priorities clash, the editor can serve as an objective third party, committed to helping team members salvage their hard work and get it across the finish line.

Stuck in a coauthored project that’s gone sideways? Consider bringing in an editor specializing in your field. We can help transform your manuscript into something that captures everyone’s vision—and resonates better with the target journal.