Much writing center assessment literature focuses on the deep importance of local, institutional context. Still, a tension exists in the field more generally, and in assessment research specifically, between a reliance on local practice and a reliance on shared lore (Driscoll and Perdue; Thompson et al.). This tension can be fruitfully examined…

This study directly compares face-to-face writing center consultations with two closely related variations of Online Writing Instruction (OWI). Although the study takes place in a busy, dynamic writing center, the authors try to make their comparisons as systematic as possible so they can better foreground some of the benefits and disadvantages of…

During their rapid growth in the 1970s and 1980s, writing centers came to depend on "lore," what Stephen North defines as "knowledge about what to do," based on practice and inherited by one generation of practitioners from the previous one. This lore has been codified as "cherished beliefs," "default(s)," or the "bible." Codified writing center…

Uses follow-up telephone calls to writing center visitors to determine whether their level of satisfaction with writing center services had remained the same over time. Indicates that when students learned of their grades, they altered their previous perceptions of their writing sessions. Suggests a seemingly positive tutoring session can result…

Presents three Hispanic students' experiences with the writing center. Suggests that the writing center centers students by helping them find a voice in the academy and by empowering them in ways that traditional institutional authority does not. Lists four ways in which the writing center can help Hispanic students. (SG)

Discusses general issues related to attitudes towards writing, which may be of interest to those working with English-as-a-second-language students, especially students coming from educational settings where writing is not traditionally taught. Presents the practice of the Writing Center at Central uropean University, one of the few centers in…

Presents the concept of directiveness (regarding the behavior of a consultant/tutor in a writing conference) as a continuum that can be defined in terms of particular characteristics. Examines students' and tutors' attitudes regarding the directiveness of tutors. Finds perceptions between consultants and students differed considerably on a number…

Investigates how participant expectations are enacted in tutorial conversations and in self-reported role perceptions. Considers how tutors, tutees, and course instructors perceived the tutor's role. Examines the tensions implicit in expectations they hold of the tutor's role(s), especially as they compare to those of the course instructor. (SG)

Presents a correlation study of student satisfaction with Writing Center services based on the number of visits students made to the Center during two different semesters. Tells a story of how the writing center staff learned to stop fearing numbers and love the interpretation of them. Finds no statistically significant correlation between number…

Addresses two kinds of writers: (1) writers who seem to want approval more than feedback; and (2) writers who refuse to do all but the bare minimum. Presents several strategies to address these writers and notes that these strategies can help educators critically examine their beliefs about what a Writing Center should accomplish. (SC)

Offers an analysis of the ways in which the structure and practice of writing centers may be uncomfortable, difficult, even anathema to many boys and young men. Describes ways the author's writing center at a boys' school has changed some of its practices in an attempt to address this issue. (SR)

Discusses writing apprehension from the tutors' point of view, drawing on observations recorded in journals. Suggests that research and discussion about writing apprehension can form an important focus for developing a tutoring course. (MM)

Uses a study of a high school writing center program to illustrate and explain the different forms and skills needed for collaborative writing in both classroom and writing center contexts. (MM)

Emphasizes the importance of paying attention to how writers feel about their writing as well as what they think about it. States that textbooks deal with writers' feelings incidentally. Defines "flow" as being the opposite of writer's block. Defines "liking" and its implications for a writer's work-in-progress. Asks whether "flow" and "liking"…

Presents a short history of collaboration as a pedagogical technique in composition. Concludes with some assumptions about collaboration that might be useful to those in writing centers as they theorize, teach, confer, tutor, conduct faculty workshops, and reflect on their educational and political purposes for teaching writing. (PRA)