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ABSTRACT. This article investigates tutor dominance in academic writing tutorials within the framework of institutional discourse. Tutor gender and tutee gender and language proficiency, as well as the interaction of the three, are considered as exponents of interactant dominance. Pragmatic measures of tutor dominance selected are frequency of directives, directive type, and mitigation strategies. Analysis indicates that these features of tutors' speech remain relatively constant in interactions with male and female tutees or with native and nonnative speakers of English. These results suggest that institutional context outweighs gender and language proficiency in the definition of participant roles and the sanctioning of tutor dominance behaviors.

"This article explores some important insights offered by second language acquisition research, focusing in particular on the findings of interactional and Vygotskyan approaches. Finally, it argues that writing centers may be an ideal place for second language writers to work on their writing."

An Inside Higher Ed article about being in a learning commons where the Writing Center shares space with a Qualitative Learning Center.

SUNY Plattsburgh's Allison Squires argues that it is alright to take a break during a tutoring sessions and to talk about AMC's The Walking Dead.

The present study aims to investigate the extent to which L2 learners' individual differences (field dependency and writing motivation) predict their retention of a teacher's written corrective feedback (CF) in the short and in the long run. Using Ellis's (2010) theoretical framework, the study examines the issue from cognitive and affective perspectives. Data was collected from 127 intermediate-level university students through written essays, a field-dependence/independence (FDI) questionnaire, and a writing motivation questionnaire, which were analyzed through t test, ANOVA, and multiple regression. The results reveal that there is a strong relationship between field independence (FI) style and the students' successful short-term and long-term retention of corrections in the subsequent writings. Writing motivation, however, influences the short-term retention of CF only.

Kyle Bell graduated from the State University of New York College at Plattsburgh in the spring of 2014. He has embarked on an accelerated B.A./M.A. TESOL from Stony Brook University. In "Multiliteracy Memes," Bell uses memes and PowerPoint to challenge common misconceptions about The Claude J. Clark Learning Center and about tutoring.

E. Marin Smith is a graduate student in the Department of English at California State Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo. Her interest in Eastern religious philosophy began while she was teaching English in Kathmandu, Nepal where she studied Hinduism, and later while teaching in Japan and studying Zen Buddhism.

Jennifer L. Haden has been a writing mentor at the University of California at San Diego for three years. Haden provides three astute tips for writing tutors to help create a comfortable tutoring session.

A consulting article from the Praxis back issues.

Article by Rebecca Babcock and Terese Thonus (with videos) discussing state of current WC research and how to get involved.

crowdsourcing a list of composition readings see also: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=24468493

Dissertation on online writing center website design

An overview of plagiarism, published in The Internet TESL Journal, 2009, written primarily for people who teach English Language Learners

The Rocky Mountain Writing Center Secondary Education Directory was compiled to help local, regional (RMWCA), and (inter)national (IWCA) organizations and institutions identify secondary schools in the Rocky Mountain Writing Center Region (AZ, CO, MO, NV, NM, UT, WY) as a precursor to connecting, collaborating, and/or supporting fellow educators in the fields of writing and peer tutoring. While the directory was originally to house all middle, junior high, and high schools, the scope was later narrowed to cover the 1,313 high schools in this eight-state region. (Article by Lisa Bell who compiled this directory is in Vol. 37.9-10 of the Writing Lab Newsletter, in open access archives: < writinglabnewsletter.org>,