Scholarship – Page 13 – Online Writing Centers Association

Adapting the High School Writing Center Model for Virtual Education (2015)

Currently my high school writing center tutors are delivering asynchronous sessions, offering three hours a day of live face-to-face dialogue, and committed to the discussion that is writing. To admit that my tutors are high school students, grades nine through twelve, should not surprise you in that we’ve all seen a movement pushing for writing centers to appear at the secondary level, but what might surprise you is that my high school students are also online learners.

Seeing New Connections: Tutoring Spaces and the Writing Center Commons (2014)

In her article “Composition’s Imagined Geographies: The Politics of Space in the Frontier, City, and Cyberspace,” Nedra Reynolds sums up in three words something nearly all writing instructors have learned keenly by experience: “Space does matter.” For better or for worse, our authority as writing instructors is often drawn from the contexts in which we’re working – as are the practices through which we enact that role.

Two Heads Are Better: An Experiment in Paired Skype Tutoring (2014)

Misemer discusses her experience conducting online tutoring appointments via Skype with two tutors and one student, what she calls "paired Skype tutoring." Misemer found an increase in tutor confidence, as well as benefits to having two tutors with complimentary strengths assisting the student.

Learning to Write in an Online Writing Center: The Effect of Learning Styles on the Writing Process (2014)

This article presents a study and a methodology to investigate whether students with different learning styles make use of the potential flexibility of online learning materials, i.c. in the context of an online writing center. The study aims to investigate the effect of learning styles on (a) the students’ approach to the writing task (process), and (b) on the letters they write (product).

Moving Online: Changing the Focus of a Writing Centre (2014)

This paper charts the development of a small departmental writing center at a university in Japan. The paper discusses the results from two semesters of an ongoing action research project focused on improving the usage of the center.

Our First Steps in Establishing an Online Writing Lab at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (2014)

In Summer 2012, I became the director of the Writing Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (UL). I was not new to the university or the Writing Center; I had been a faculty member since 1996 and held other administrative positions in the department. So when I stepped into the position, I had some ideas of what I wanted to do to expand our center.

Beyond the Lore: A Research-Based Case for Asynchronous Online Writing Tutoring (2014) [Dissertation]

Asynchronous online tutoring is a highly contested form of writing tutoring. Critics of asynchronous online tutoring argue that it is ineffective, running contrary to traditional notions of what writing tutoring should look like and how it should be practiced. Supporters of asynchronous online tutoring advocate for its inclusion in the tutoring canon, suggesting that it should be one of many formats available to students.

Distance Tutoring: Online Writing Center for L2 University Students (2014)

University students are asked to act within and master a diverse range of genres as student writers and researchers (Nesi & Gardner, 2012). Although the difficulty in performing such a task is considerable for first language (L1) writers, second language (L2) writers face similar yet also different rhetorical and linguistic demands and challenges.

Interactions on the Online Writing Center: Students’ Perspectives (2014)

This research explores the current state of online writing centers by analyzing the contributions of scholars, tutors, and students to the pedagogical practices of online peer tutoring. The study examines three areas of online peer synchronous tutoring from students' perspectives: a) students' experiences, b) students' revision processes, and c) sound practices for online tutoring.

Mode, Method, and Medium: The Affordances of Online Tutorials in the Writing Center (2014)

This research reports on a comparative analysis of online and in-person tutoring at three different universities, focusing on tutor self-perceptions and on affordances, a concept drawn from systems engineering, human-computer interaction and ecological psychology.