This study presents the results of our analysis of a subset of student survey data, collected over seven years of Elon University’s course-embedded consultant (CEC) program. Our analysis aims to understand how students in courses with an assigned CEC perceive to benefit from working with their CEC in tandem with the guidance they receive from the instructor. Since the synergy between the CEC and instructor is crucial to the success of the program, we hoped to see that students were learning complimentary things about writing from their CEC and their instructor. We analyzed students’ responses to survey questions about their learning from the CEC and the instructor by individual course, seeking to pinpoint how students’ expectations for learning at the beginning of the course align with or compare to their perceived learning at the end of the course. Many previous studies have sought to determine the benefits to students of CEC programs, and our study seeks to embrace the variation across individual courses and to look at learning in the course more holistically. Finally, our analysis helps us understand what we might do differently to manage students’ expectations and enhance their perceptions of learning in the course.

In this article, we discuss how participating in a writing group during  and after the COVID-19 pandemic helped us reimagine what  scholarly productivity means for us as writing center professionals  (WCPs). Drawing on our experiences in an online writing group for  almost three years with WCPs from four different institutions, we  identify three themes that emerged across our experiences: (1)  writing center work as scholarly and intellectual; (2)  professionalization and mentoring; and (3) social support.  Identifying these themes made visible for us a broader notion of  scholarly productivity. It also helped us think more strategically  about the complex and layered work we do as WCPs as we  consistently juggle competing work demands. We hope this article  can help WCPs not only re-conceive what it means to be productive  as writing center scholars but also to integrate a broad range of  scholarly work more fully into what they are already doing.

Since its inception in 2003, the IWCA Summer Institute (SI) has been understood within the writing center field to be an important professional development opportunity for new and experienced writing center professionals (WCPs). Publications on the SI to date have focused on anecdotal perceptions of the benefits to leaders and participants or on a single outcome, such as research output. Thus, the writing center field knows little about how and in what ways participants perceive the SI’s benefits across cohorts and across a variety of professional areas. By gathering quantitative and qualitative data from every SI cohort from 2003 to 2019, the goal of this study was to identify and define the benefits of the SI, focusing in particular on how participants themselves understand them. The survey received 161 responses, a response rate of approximately 27%; all 17 years of the SI were represented. The study found that, despite the field’s shifting priorities since 2003, the concerns and needs of WCPs have remained relatively constant over time, and that the SI serves the most pressing administrative needs of participants.

Through an analysis of over 40 writing center blogs, this webtext offers an overview of the current status of blog use in writing centers, and a guide to best practices that incorporates survey responses from the writing center professionals who maintain exemplary blogs.

We report on a survey of students and alumni, examining their “rhetorical training”—their writing knowledge and experiences across multiple courses, campus employment, and workplace contexts. The survey asked participants to identify their most often written genres and their most valued type of writing, the rhetorical situations in which they compose their most valued genre, and the writing processes they have developed. We examined the multiple sources of rhetorical training that participants believe prepared them to write their most valued genre. Multiple rhetorical training experiences prepare writers for the writing they value, and both students and alumni describe robust writing processes and appreciate feedback from others. Yet alumni continue to express challenges adapting writing for new audiences and genres.

This article examines the literature on writer resistance to feedback (Elbow, Sommers, Straub) and presents the results of a study designed to examine how tutors-in-training can develop a greater understanding of that resistance. In this study, we asked students in two writing center education courses at two different schools to provide written feedback on each other’s writing and then followed up with two interviews with selected participants. The exchange invited the tutors-in-training to engage in the challenging experience faced by every writing center client: receiving feedback on their writing. Our purpose was to identify whether this exchange improved the tutors’ ability both to give feedback and to understand how to receive feedback effectively (Stone and Heen). Could engaging in an exchange with tutors-in-training from another school help them appreciate feedback as a problematic form of communication? Does the experience of receiving such feedback—and reflecting on it—influence future tutors’ thinking about their approach to tutoring others? We found that the experience enhanced tutors’ awareness of writers’ resistance to feedback and the need to tailor feedback respectfully and responsively.

This study explores the impact of tutor talk on students' revision practices. We applied Mackiewicz & Thompson's scheme for classifying tutoring strategies from their 2015 Talk about Writing, with some variation to suit our writing center context. With an exclusive focus on tutor talk, they did not assess the impact of tutor talk on the writing itself nor on the writer's responses to the conversation with the tutor. Thus, in our study we sought evidence of a relationship between the different types or patterns of tutor talk and the extent of revisions a writer made to their essay after a writing center session. Our mixed-methods study found that in 80% of sessions (n=8), students revised based on tutor talk, and in two sessions, students applied tutor talk to sections of their paper not discussed in the session.