Group items tagged

"The Citation Project is a multi-institution research project responding to educators' concerns about plagiarism and the teaching of writing. Although much has been written on this topic and many have expressed concerns, little empirical data is available to describe what students are actually doing with their sources. At present, therefore, educators must make policy decisions and pedagogy based on anecdote, personal observation, media reports, and the claims of corporations that sell "solutions." The Citation Project begins the process of providing descriptive data. Our research team systematically studies randomly selected, source-based student papers from a range of different institutions. Our purpose is to describe how student writers use the sources they cite in their papers. With this information, educators will be able to make informed decisions about best practices for formulating plagiarism policies and for teaching rhetorically effective and ethically responsible methods of writing from sources. Preventing plagiarism is a desired outcome of our research, as the subtitle above indicates, but the Citation Project research suggests that students' knowing how to understand and synthesize complex, lengthy sources is essential to effective plagiarism prevention. If instructors know how shallowly students are engaging with their research source-and that is what the Citation Project research reveals-then they know what responsible pedagogy needs to address."

International Writing Centers Association website link to the Writing Center Research Project

a discussion of policies related to tutoring one member of a group (group projects) see also: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=23887331

The Research Exchange Index (REx) is an searchable index of contemporary writing research. It features brief descriptions of individual projects, focusing on the research process and serving as a complement to other forms of scholarly publication (i.e., published research, institutional reports, formal and informal presentations)

discussing how to help students who want writing help but aren't working on a particular project (general skills)

"As student populations in colleges and universities continue to diversify, composition programs do not always meet students' varying needs. English as a Second Language (ESL) students appear to fail mainstream writing courses at higher rates than their traditional counterparts, yet mainstreaming continues to be mandated, often due to budgetary constraints. Many programs offer multicultural writing courses, but these, too, are often ineffective for many students. Meanwhile, as Paul Kei Matsuda shows, there is a decided split between the disciplines of composition and ESL. Since ESL scholars have a much stronger history of working with diverse student populations than composition scholars do, this study aims to look to ESL scholarship, specifically to contrastive rhetoric, to explore more effective methods of teaching writing to students with varying needs. This case study takes an in-depth look at one student's journey writing across cultures. Ming, a Chinese immigrant who has been in the United States for approximately ten years, is a junior at the University of Rhode Island who struggles with writing. Over the course of one semester, three of her projects were studied in depth. Data include transcripts of audiotaped tutorial sessions in the URI Writing Center, Ming's assignments and papers, and the researcher's notes from interviews with Ming following the tutorial sessions. ^ The new contrastive rhetoric (Connor, Kaplan, Purves) insists that external factors such as culture, education, and media influence the rhetorical patterns writers use. Through a lens of contrastive rhetoric, it becomes clear that most of Ming's difficulties when writing stem from a lack of familiarity with the conventions of U.S. academic discourse or of what her reader expects from her text. The source of much of this is cultural. While Ming's experiences are not generalizable, an in-depth look at her experiences foregrounds some of the issues that contrastive rhetoric addresses, making th

The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. Teachers and trainers may use this material for in-class and out-of-class instruction.  This is a very widely used site for open access materials on writing. Includes materials on research and citation, teacher and tutor resources, subject-specific writing, job search writing, ESL, MLA and APA guides, etc. 

This resource was created by undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty at the University of Michigan's Sweetland Center for Writing. Using video of undergraduates reflecting on their writing and revision process, this resource helps writers to explore more effective revision. Some resources for faculty are also provided.

the first "Great Moments in Writing Lab History"; a report on "Comp-Lab Project" of York College, "where reduced classroom hours are systematically coordinated with a flexible schedule of autotutorial work in a writing laboratory"; a report from a WC on offering student support beyond auto-instruction; a report on computer-assisted instruction; mailing list

The goal of the WPA Census is to create an online database that would serve as a first stop for people to find answers to questions that come up often in writing program administration practice and research.  The WPA Census embodies the idea that the administrative work of WPAs, WCDs, and WAC directors is scholarship. By ultimately providing these directors with a database that catalogs and organizes the diversity of writing programs, the Census will allow researchers to analyze macro- and micro-trends in the landscape of US institutions.

The Writing Space was developed by Elizabeth Busekrus. Missouri Baptist University Writing Coaches post prompts in the hopes of creating a conversation between students and the coaches. She has written an essay about this project in WLN Sept. Oct. 2014 titled "The Writing Space: A Forum for the Technological Age."

references and annotations "focused on race/racism, antiracism, and racial justice"

"Writing Across Borders" is a video resulting from a 3-year research project, the purpose of which is "to help faculty writing assistants, and other professionals work more productively with international students in writing environments." The video can be used for tutor training and costs $14.95, plua $6 shipping, and can be ordered from the Oregon State University bookstore. 

Shelley Powers from the University of Texas at Austin talks about how consulting on technical writing projects can make liberal arts-trained writing consultants nervous. However, technical writing is more familiar territory than we might think.