Abstract As our discipline’s scholars, we must recognize that ours is a history “that is best recognized as an always incomplete narrative” and continue to delve the past as we seek to inform our future (Lerner 25). In this article, I delve into Plato’s use of “elenchus” or cross-questioning for the purpose of achieving “aporia”—the sense of perplexity or confusion that usually accompanies the discovery that language does not have the ability to mean in any stable sense” within Theaetetus (Raign 90). In addition to extending our narrative history, studying the process of elenchus will allow us to share this methodology with our tutors, so that they can develop the ability not to merely engage in conversation with their students, or lead them to a truth not their own, but engage in the type of inquiry about language and its ability to mean that leads students toward the sort of self-discovery present in the Platonic dialogues.

In this article, I provide an overview of what our field recognizes as the most useful taxonomies of research. Based on this overview, I argue, via specific examples of published research, that we sometimes conflate simplicity with the simplistic. I conclude by offering an example of a quasi-experiment based on data I have collected that investigates statistical correlations between five factors: a student’s satisfaction with space, tutor’s knowledge, tutor’s ability to share knowledge, student’s likeliness to return to the center, and student’s likeliness to recommend the center. Center directors have the most control over internal factors: who is hired as a tutor, what criteria are used to hire, and how tutors are trained. However, my data shows that these internal factors have less influence on students’ perceptions of the center than external factors such as space. Finally, if space is the most important factor in determining students’ perceptions of center, and center directors have little or no influence over that factor, are directors being unfairly evaluated when their administration looks at their ability to retain current center users, and bring in more? I conclude by exhorting other directors of other centers to share their own data, so that we can all learn from each other’s experiences.