Warren #9
Q: How important do you think it is for writing center staff to pursue writing center research? Why? What sorts of research could we propose for IWCC?
I feel it's important for writing center staff to pursue research because research can be beneficial for tutors (and sometimes students). It has the potential to help tutors understand new pedagogical approaches and strategies, and develop ways to improve a writing center, to name a few. One of the challenges in conducting this research, particularly for those who are fairly new to writing centers, is to come to understand what areas of research are relevant. On the one hand, this can be accomplished by comparing the scholarship on writing centers with one's own tutoring experiences. On the other hand, tutors may want to come to their own understanding first of how a writing center functions (or doesn't function), and then search for those issues in the scholarship to see if they've been addressed. In either scenario, I think the key factor is time. It takes time to become familiar with research, and it takes time to become comfortable with tutoring, both of which are integral to determining what issues need to be further explored.
I think an interesting research consideration for IWCC would be to examine how discipline-specific writing centers function across the university. Although it's understandable why they function in relative isolation, I believe much benefit could arise by determining what the writing centers have in common, and what useful information they could share with one another.
I feel it's important for writing center staff to pursue research because research can be beneficial for tutors (and sometimes students). It has the potential to help tutors understand new pedagogical approaches and strategies, and develop ways to improve a writing center, to name a few. One of the challenges in conducting this research, particularly for those who are fairly new to writing centers, is to come to understand what areas of research are relevant. On the one hand, this can be accomplished by comparing the scholarship on writing centers with one's own tutoring experiences. On the other hand, tutors may want to come to their own understanding first of how a writing center functions (or doesn't function), and then search for those issues in the scholarship to see if they've been addressed. In either scenario, I think the key factor is time. It takes time to become familiar with research, and it takes time to become comfortable with tutoring, both of which are integral to determining what issues need to be further explored.
I think an interesting research consideration for IWCC would be to examine how discipline-specific writing centers function across the university. Although it's understandable why they function in relative isolation, I believe much benefit could arise by determining what the writing centers have in common, and what useful information they could share with one another.
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