Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 17, No. 2 (2020)
Tutor Talk, Netspeak, and Student Speak: Enhancing Online Consultations
Courtney L. Werner
Monmouth University
cwerner@monmouth.edu
Diana Lin Awad Scrocco
Youngstown State University
dlawadscrocco@ysu.edu
As more writing centers move to include synchronous chat as a writing center consultation option, writing center researchers and practitioners must continue examining the affordances and constraints of the medium. In this article, we analyze four synchronous online consultation transcripts from one writing center’s pilot program to evaluate consultation patterns and arcs, approaches to teaching and tutoring, and the role of digital language, or netspeak (Crystal 19), in tutors’ feedback. We use this preliminary analysis to argue that writing center tutors can effectively use synchronous tutoring to meet the needs of diverse student populations, but these consultations might be more effective if tutors thoughtfully utilize some of the best practices of face-to-face tutoring. One finding suggests that tutors might engage student writers in online consultations more effectively by employing soliciting and reacting techniques more often than unintentionally using directive structuring practices, which can serve to limit dialogue with student writers (Fanselow 21; Davis et al. 29). Additionally, although netspeak can potentially establish common linguistic ground with writers, tutors should be aware of the disadvantages of using an informal tone and non-academic language in chat consultations; in fact, student writers might benefit from reading tutors’ chat feedback in Edited Academic Discourse. By employing the positive elements of face-to-face consultations in chat sessions, this medium has the potential for effective tutoring in a space where many students feel most comfortable. Our analysis may serve as a heuristic for others to use in assessing chat consultations, developing tutor training, and initiating future research on this consultation option.
When our writing center at a large, Midwestern university launched a new synchronous chat consultation option, we promoted a relatively straightforward pedagogical principle: if the traditional face-to-face writing consultation model did not work for some students, our writing tutors should be available to those students in other spaces. Although some centers resist online tutoring as contrary to core writing center principles, diverse student needs oblige us to consider offering such consultations. For some students, meeting in person with a tutor about their writing simply does not work logistically—distance-learning status, family-life constraints, career demands, and overbooked schedules sometimes preclude students from scheduling writing center appointments during the center’s face-to-face working hours. For other students, the idea of working face-to-face with tutors provokes such anxiety that they feel uncomfortable engaging in traditional in-person consultations (Yergeau et al., np.), and they try to “keep a safe distance” from tutors (Carlson and Apperson-Williams 133). This anxiety sometimes stems from physical, social, and learning disabilities (Ries 7) and discourages these students from making face-to-face writing center appointments. More generally, some students simply feel more comfortable using digitally mediated writing collaboration strategies because they find these spaces more comfortable and natural (Pritchard and Morrow 94).
Ideally, online chat consultations can compensate for a range of obstacles that occur during in-person consultations, though we must not assume that online consultations are a panacea for scheduling difficulties and the discomforts students face in our centers. Instead, we must acknowledge, as Heather Fielding notes, that students still need to fit online writing instruction (OWI) into their schedules and lived time constraints (104). And while some students feel confident in digital spaces, others may feel anxious about online writing consultations: the need to acclimate to this new consultation space may be off-putting for some students (Pantellides 271), including those with disabilities. Still, according to Stephanie Ries, online consultations can do much to remedy students’ anxieties, such as creating a safe space for disabled students while allowing the intimacy of the writing center consultation to play out through important rapport-building strategies (7-8).
Despite the potential for online writing consultations to overcome some constraints of traditional face-to-face consultations, we recognize legitimate concerns about the pitfalls of such consultations, particularly when they endanger the hallmarks of writing center practice. For example, potential downsides for online consultations include greater focus on the written product rather than the writer (Neaderhiser and Wolfe 66; Rickly 58) and the writer’s growth (a hallmark of our own center’s ideology). Another challenge is a potential increase in unintentionally directive feedback—though we acknowledge that intentional directive feedback can, in fact, be effective and appropriate in specific contexts¹. Finally, writing center directors might also worry about typing competencies or even voice-to-text transcription errors when transitioning to synchronous digital tutoring. Tutors and writers may face challenges with typing competencies that range from simple issues of keyboard familiarity and speed to physical disabilities. Further issues may arise when considering the time constraints of sessions and the pressure to type quickly yet cogently for clear communication. Some tutors and writers may experience added anxiety and pressure in this situation. These challenges may impede tutors’ abilities to offer valuable feedback, and they may also inhibit writers’ abilities to explain their ideas, concerns, and even their agendas for consultations.
Despite the possible challenges of online writing consultations, at our university, our director seeks strategies for meeting all of our students in ways that work for them and fit into their lives. Considering the diverse student needs and expectations for writing center consultations, the director at our center aimed to meet students’ needs in digital environments—specifically by piloting synchronous online chat consultations, not in lieu of face-to-face or asynchronous consultations but as an alternative for students who need another consultation option. Nevertheless, while the chat option provides an opportunity for students who may not otherwise choose to work with a tutor, the potential for tutors to overlook the conventions of established tutoring practices seem greater. Indeed, this concern has received attention by others seeking to make the shift to online consultations (Rickly 58).
In this exploratory study, we conduct a dialogue analysis of four synchronous chat transcripts to determine some affordances and constraints of this medium, to suggest some areas for future research, and to model how discursive analysis of digital consultations methods can be used by other centers to craft stronger tutor-training programs that align with centers’ unique philosophies and pedagogies. To this end, we ask three research questions:
What elements of traditional face-to-face tutor talk and digitally-mediated language—David Crystal’s netspeak (19)—appear in these synchronous chat consultation transcripts?
What potential benefits and drawbacks arise from using these elements of tutor talk and netspeak in synchronous chat consultations?
How can we design a tutor-training program to prepare tutors to navigate synchronous chat consultations?
In answering these research questions, our analysis of this limited data set aims to provide other writing center administrators and scholars a heuristic for developing tutor training for synchronous chat consultations and conducting more robust future research on a larger sample of synchronous chat consultation transcripts. While our analysis cannot substantiate broad generalizations, we strive to model the type of analysis that others can utilize in their own centers to evaluate their tutors’ chat consultation practices and to improve student writers’ experiences with this type of tutoring.
In the next section, we review some established strategies for tutoring in online spaces, and we explain and define the key features of tutor talk (Auten 2; Davis et al. 32) and netspeak (Crystal 19), which we use to help us to answer our research questions. We use these characteristics of tutor talk and netspeak to understand how the tutors in our study interweave conventions of tutor talk and netspeak to build rapport with students and to support their writing processes. Further, we identify some aspects of these tutors’ feedback that might undermine our writing center’s goal of engaging students in productive, academic conversations about their writing. We argue that, although this technological space broadens where writing tutors can meet students, some tendencies of digital communication may impede tutors’ modeling of Edited Academic Discourse—one goal our center holds for tutors interacting with writers.
The Growth of Online Conferencing Technologies and Online Tutoring Strategies
Research from the past two decades reveals an increase in online writing labs (OWLs) and online writing instruction (OWI); this increase suggests the need to study the practical implications of online consultations—especially those that incorporate synchronous chat and related technologies. In 1997, Mark Shadle’s survey of OWLs showed that very few writing centers utilized basic email or text-based consultations, even though digital and internet-based technologies had grown in popularity among college students. More recently, Stephen Neaderhiser and Joanna Wolfe updated Shadle’s survey, asking similar questions of writing centers about their online spaces and tutorial offerings. They found that, of 266 schools with an online presence, 115 “reported offering online consultations,” but “fewer than 6% reported even experimenting with technology that was not available when Shadle did his first survey of OWLs in 1997” (Neaderhiser and Wolfe 61). In other words, very few centers from Neaderhiser and Wolfe’s 2009 study reported using newer online-consultation tools, such as synchronous instant-messaging or screen-sharing technologies, which allow tutors and writers to share and view documents digitally in real-time.
Some research on digital consultation technologies examines writing centers that have embraced the OWL as more than a compendium of handouts and links. Challenging those who assume that face-to-face consultations maximize the conversational nature of writing tutorials, scholars such as Melanie Yergeau et al. note that using text to discuss texts can demonstrate writing in situ to students; in the process, technologically mediated consultations can offer new and interesting ways to interact and converse about writing (Yergeau et al. np.) and demonstrate for both tutors and writers “how the text evolves” (Grustch McKinney 11). In this vein, scholars such as Jackie Grutsch McKinney and Beth Hewett have examined what Yergeau et al. refer to as audio-video-textual conferences (AVT): “a semiotically rich medium that sustains critical ‘social cues’ and enhances interaction and exchange” (np). Scholarship suggests that AVT (and other online tutoring technologies) should be used to reflect and embody an individual center’s pedagogical ideology, including whether to offer synchronous or asynchronous consultations (Grutsch McKinney 12; Summers 13; Hewett 21).
In the context of some writing centers, then, asynchronous online tutoring can be used for effective consultations. For years, Kathryn Denton notes, writing center scholarship and the broader professional conversation has rehashed the same arguments for and against the use of asynchronous consultations (177). Although Denton argues that these arguments remain stale and based on lore rather than empirical research, she asserts that asynchronous consultations can, in fact, be innovative and useful, especially for students receiving course content via online instruction (Denton 178, CCCC Principles 13 and 15; Hewett 48). Despite the potential benefits of asynchronous tutoring and interaction in the writing center, other scholars suggest that student writers and tutors alike may prefer face-to-face interactions in the writing center (Awad Scrocco 12; Carlson and Apperson-Williams 134; Thurber, 156). These preferences for face-to-face exchanges suggest synchronous options that mimic face-to-face consultations can have real staying power among tutors and writers alike.
To provide an online consultation option that more closely mirrors face-to-face interaction, our center’s director chose to add an online, synchronous chat consultation option, reinforcing the center’s espoused ideology of meeting students’ needs in their preferred spaces and lives. Our center’s philosophy aligns with “foundational writing center literature [which] tells us that tutoring is best in a one-on-one setting, with an engaged student participating in lively dialogue with an interested tutor who knows how to ask the right questions to spark student insights” (Denton 199). In other words, synchronous chat enables a dynamic dialogue that asynchronous consultations simply cannot. However, we know, too, that synchronous and asynchronous online tutoring is part of a tutoring continuum: effective consultations slide across this continuum by being “more flexible and responsive to the moment and to student needs” (Denton 199). Our director’s choice to employ document-sharing technologies alongside synchronous chatting attempts to help tutors effectively navigate this tutoring continuum by allowing them to examine the student’s written product while interacting in real time.
As the use of OWLs continues to grow, our director strives to make our digital consultations more similar to in-person, Burkean parlor-esque conversations about writing; in the process, we promote the philosophy that tutor-writer conversations should support writers’ autonomy as critical thinkers and should engage them, rather than employing overly directive tutoring methods that encourage passivity (Neaderhiser and Wolfe 50). Our study contributes to a better understanding of how synchronous digital consultations can productively engage students in conversations about their writing by incorporating beneficial face-to-face conversational conventions and netspeak practices that make many students feel comfortable (Crystal 19; 255). Thus, we add to the growing body of scholarship that compares online interaction to face-to-face consultations (Wolfe and Griffin 62). In this article, we attempt to demonstrate one approach for analyzing and improving our tutors’ synchronous chat practices—a method that other directors, tutors, and writers (Conrad-Salvo and Spartz 41-42) who emphasize and prize collaboration (Nordmark 70) might model. Ultimately, we remember that “it’s not the technology that drives our actions, but our commitments” (Godbee).
The Writing Center Context
Although some writing center OWLs predominantly use asynchronous methods of consulting, we examine synchronous consultations piloted in our center because this type of session mimics face-to-face consultations more closely than asynchronous consultations. We do recognize, though, that tutors and writers face both more potential benefits and more risk in attempting to reproduce face-to-face strategies in synchronous chat consultations. Specifically, we acknowledge that some elements of face-to-face tutoring may not be possible or appropriate in chat consultations, and aiming for a wholesale reproduction of face-to-face tutoring strategies may be misguided; however, because of the similar social dynamics between synchronous face-to-face and synchronous chat consultations, we attempt to understand what face-to-face patterns emerge in chat consultations and whether and how well those patterns serve students’ needs.
At our center, we implemented synchronous chat consultations paired with document sharing; in these consultations, tutors and writers use screen-sharing so both can see the document and view the other person making changes to the text. All elements were used via our institution’s Google platform. Tutors who agreed to participate in this pilot program were not given any supplemental training on how to tutor in digital environments. Instead, they were only given training in how to use the platform and were encouraged to implement the best practices learned during their prior tutor training.
In our study, examining the language tutors and writers use in live chats with document sharing allows us to explore the conversational patterns employed, the similarities and differences between online chat and in-person consultations, and the pedagogical implications of patterns observed in synchronous online consultations. We argue that synchronous chat consultations have the potential to reach students in a space where they feel comfortable and receptive to engaging in critical conversations about their writing; nonetheless, the unchartered territory and informal nature of digital writing center consultations may create an environment in which tutors inadvertently dominate the consultation with the types of directive tutoring that can disempower students and strip their ideas from a paper. Further, tutors may default to informal, non-academic English, which may undermine tutors’ credibility and miss opportunities to model Edited Academic Discourse for writers.
Integrating Traditional Tutor Talk and Netspeak in Online Consultations
Tutor Talk
In addition to integrating potentially valuable rapport-building netspeak features in online chat consultations, we contend that these consultations also ought to include the well-established features of traditional tutor talk. Similar to Joanna Wolfe and Jo Ann Griffin’s work on audio-based online writing instruction (OWI) consultations, we compare the trends in a set of synchronous chat consultation transcripts to tutorial patterns in face-to-face consultations (65-66). Like Wolfe and Griffin, who specifically discuss “assessing [transcripts for] qualitative differences such as consultant control of the sessions or overall pedagogical quality of the sessions” (66), we examine qualitative features of synchronous consultations by using theories of tutor talk to analyze these consultations; we focus on the elements of tutor talk that align with ideas of control and session quality. In his discussion of tutor talk, Tom Truesdell argues that ideally, tutors should discuss writing with writers in “open-ended, exploratory ways and not in directive, imperative, restrictive modes” (Ashton-Jones 32 qtd. in Truesdell 7). Rather than instructing writers during a writing consultation, for instance, Truesdell encourages more reciprocal tutoring strategies (7). Truesdell and others (e.g., Neaderhiser and Wolfe) characterize the ideal form of tutor talk as involving reflective, guided questions and reader-response statements (7). In short, tutor talk—whether online or in person—ought to consist of reflective, open-ended, strategic questioning and responding in non-dominant and personal ways that intentionally employ both non-directive and directive feedback strategies appropriately.
Tutor-Talk Features.
Research on the structure of face-to-face writing consultations suggests that tutor talk includes an opening, connecting, and closing (Auten 2, 4) as well as the pedagogical sequences of structuring, soliciting, responding, and reacting (Fanselow 21; Davis et al. 29). In the opening segment of a consultation, tutors introduce themselves, familiarize writers with the basics of the consultation, and talk generally about the paper; with connecting, tutors and writers establish rapport and develop an agenda for the consultation (Auten 2). Structuring occurs when one speaker—usually the tutor—offers scaffolding through lessons or explanations, and soliciting occurs when tutors or writers pose questions or statements that intentionally seek a response from the interlocutor (Fanselow 21; Davis et al. 29). During responding, one speaker’s statement serves as a follow-up to a solicitation; a speaker draws on something the interlocutor has previously said, and reacting acknowledges the response through agreement, feedback, or evaluation (Fanselow 21; Davis et al. 29). Finally, during closing, writers and tutors end the consultation with recaps of the lessons, goodbyes, and ideally, invitations for writers to come back to the writing center (Auten 4). In our study, we aim to determine how these elements of tutor talk manifest in synchronous chat consultations. We also examine whether tutors might benefit from explicit training and professional development that encourages them to accomplish particular goals in specific stages of the consultation.
Directive Versus Non-Directive Tutoring.
Although our writing center director espouses non-directive methods as generally preferable to more directive approaches, we recognize that intentional directive methods can also lead to effective writing tutoring; specifically, when tutors receive training in the directive/non-directive tutoring continuum and learn when directive tutoring can be most useful, they can consciously and effectively employ more directive methods. We contrast this purposeful directive tutoring strategy with the more unintentional directive tutoring that tutors sometimes use as a default method; unintentional directive tutoring often involves tutors taking control over the consultation and usurping writers’ ownership over the written product rather than empowering writers with knowledge they previously might not have had but can now use to craft a stronger written product.
Indeed, we recognize the historical debate in writing center studies about which consulting methods most effectively engage, instruct, and empower student writers (see Brooks; Gillam, et al.; Shamoon and Burns; Grimm; Geller et al.; Corbett). Specifically, as Steven Corbett writes, “Writing center and peer tutoring people are proud of our history of caring and focusing on the individual learner” (94). Our center is no exception; still, we must ask Corbett’s question, “Have we alienated some outside our centered family circles” (94) when we focus solely on non-directive tutoring strategies? Indeed, many student writers perceive non-directive feedback to be ineffective and circuitous; students note that strictly non-directive methods often seem to lack a clear plan for the consultation and ultimately fail to help them develop a more effective writing process or written product (Hedengren and Lockerd 138).
More broadly, non-directive tutoring remains a murky construct. While non-directive tutoring remains the standard practice among many scholars and writing center directors as the “pedagogy du jour” (Carino 98), actual consultations can be difficult to label as directive or non-directive. Tutors and writers may characterize their contributions and approach to a session differently. Moreover, as Irene Clark demonstrates, tutors and student-writers often hold different assumptions about the benefits of non-directive tutoring; those assumptions often rest on students’ perceptions of their own writing abilities (37) as well as what counts as directive or non-directive (44). She notes, “Poor writers tended to attribute a more significant role to the consultant” (45), showing that they interpret consultations as directive even when tutors interpret the consultation as non-directive.
Moreover, directive methods run a gamut of options: a consultation could be interpreted as directive if the tutor specifically commits to a given objective, line edits the student paper, or gives the writer suggestions for entire paragraphs or the text’s organization. Each of these separate instances can be characterized as a directive method that can influence the consultation. Many writing center scholars and directors balk at particular forms of directive feedback, especially line editing (Giaimo 61-62). However, Peter Carino notes that “a nonhierarchical environment does not depend on blind commitment to nondirective tutoring methods,” (109) even though writing center lore tends to discuss directive and hierarchical tutoring as one in the same. Carino contends that directive methods can be useful when tutors understand who has power in a consultation and when to use that power appropriately (109).
With scholarship on the directive/non-directive continuum in mind, we use the context of our chat transcripts to assess tutors’ use of both non-directive and directive feedback; we attempt to highlight instances of productive, non-directive feedback and to differentiate between unintentional and intentional directive tutoring. Specifically, non-directive tutoring, at its best, draws primarily on peer collaboration: “Both student and tutor share authority and engage in collaborative operations to improve the text” (Carino 104): the tutor supplies a question and rhetorical knowledge, which the student writer uses to improve the paper. Also, the student simultaneously learns something about her writing knowledge and improves the paper by implementing this knowledge. On the other hand, intentional directive feedback can supply needed direction and instruction, whereas unintentional directive feedback can serve to shut down communication between tutors and writers.
With collaboration at the center of our tutor-training program, our writing center director emphasizes non-directive tutoring as one preferred way to advocate for a nuanced approach to power dynamics within a writing consultation. Along these lines, in a critique of directive tutoring, Anne DiPardo notes that one tutor in her study overpowers the writer with directive strategies; she argues that non-directive tutoring might be more productive for certain writers, such as those who identify as part of a linguistic minority or those working on high-stakes academic writing assignments (140-141). In our center, our director strives to balance the benefits of non-directive tutoring with the understanding that in certain contexts, directive tutoring better supports some writers; nonetheless, our director does emphasize non-directive strategies during tutor training. As such, the tutors in our center and in this study receive training in foundational non-directive pedagogies, such as asking guiding questions and engaging in “active listening” (DiPardo 126). Tutors are encouraged to enact this pedagogy while making room for lived situations that require or may be better served by directive tutoring. As Corbett reminds us,
in the “real world” of intellectual peer critique, we realize that sometimes it’s all right to give a pointed suggestion, to offer an idea for a subtopic, to give explicit direction on how to cite sources, to offer examples of alternate wording and sentence constructions—in short—to practice along a continuum of instructional choices both collaborative and empowering, allowing for alternate moments of interpersonal and intertextual collegiality and agency-building. (95)
While non-directive methods dominate the training in our center, we acknowledge that tutors should use intentional directive pedagogies in context, and in our analysis, we attempt to distinguish between unintentional, controlling directive feedback and thoughtfully employed directive feedback. We use the phrases “intentional directive tutoring” and “unintentional directive tutoring” to differentiate between situations where a tutor is meeting a writer’s needs via an intentionally directive moment (such as explaining the specifics of a citation or grammatical error) as opposed to the tutor shifting the tone, content, or intent of a paper, for example, by giving a writer a thesis to use. The synchronous tutoring transcripts we analyze in this study demonstrate this continuum of directive tutoring and in situ decision-making.
Language Modeling in Writing Consultations.
Tutors’ decision-making can carry over into their language modeling practices as well. One of our center’s goals for online synchronous consultations is for tutors to use their chat dialogue to model Edited Academic Discourse. Various studies indicate that using text-based mediums for writing center consultations enable student writers to witness academic discourse in action (Denton 178; Carlson and Apperson-Williams 135). Moreover, text-based consultations demonstrate how written language—including tutors’ written advice—can be misunderstood (Hewett 116), further reinforcing the need for precision in students’ own writing.
Linguistics and discourse studies also demonstrate the usefulness of communication modeling. For example, James Pennebaker argues that verbal mimicking serves as a form of modeling: people engaged in conversation tend to adopt the same words as their interlocutors. More importantly, “People also converge in the ways they talk—they tend to adopt the same levels of formality, emotionality, and cognitive complexity” (ch. 8). This convergence, called Language Style Matching (LSM), can occur during any form of social interaction, including text and video. Thus, after just 15 to 30 seconds, tutors can set the tone of Edited Academic Discourse for writers in a synchronous consultation (ch. 8). The opening of the session, then, may determine tutors’ abilities to effectively model Edited Academic Discourse throughout the duration of the chat session.
Netspeak
Uniquely, online writing consultations create spaces where the environment shifts from an oral context of a face-to-face consultation to a textual environment in which writers and tutors write about the student’s writing. As Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch and Sam Racine claim, “A virtual tutoring environment is rich with text, and it often includes tutor feedback in a text-only format. As one might imagine, virtual spaces have been critiqued as being ‘less inviting’ than face-to-face environments” (247). However, the social conventions of netspeak make the synchronous chat option potentially more popular among and accessible to students than asynchronous email consultations because students are increasingly comfortable with informal online writing via texting, instant/direct/private messaging, social media, and other online contexts.
According to Crystal, the netspeak characteristics that contribute to online social interaction include synchronous timing, turn taking, and a highly colloquial grammar with non-standard usage (171). Crystal explains that netspeak also incorporates emoticons, abbreviations, uncorrected typing errors, and a heightened use of question marks, exclamation points, and ellipses. Netspeak is characterized by fewer full stops (ending punctuation), sentence-initial capitalization, and capitalized proper nouns (255). These features, according to Crystal, establish “an increased level of intimacy linking IM [instant messaging] participants [which] promotes a greater level of informality and typographical idiosyncrasy” (255). If tutors employ these conventions of netspeak, they may be able to reach common linguistic ground with student writers; however, because netspeak violates conventions of Edited Academic Discourse, tutors may not strategically code-switch between netspeak and Edited Academic Discourse well enough to maximize their modeling of the type of language expected in college classrooms.
The Current Study: Methodology
While the aforementioned features of tutor talk have been accepted as best practice in writing center scholarship, few scholars have examined the extent to which tutors employ these features of tutor talk when conversing with writers in synchronous online writing consultations. We argue that even though synchronous online tutoring differs from traditional face-to-face tutoring, the conversational and pedagogical objectives remain constant: tutors should engage writers in discussions about their writing, respect writers’ agendas, and equip writers with knowledge and resources to improve their own writing. As noted, to examine how well tutors accomplish these writing-center goals in synchronous chat consultations, we analyzed four transcripts from our center’s saved online synchronous chat consultation logs to answer our research questions: What elements of traditional face-to-face tutor talk and digitally-mediated language—netspeak (Crystal 19)—appear in these synchronous chat consultation transcripts? What potential benefits and drawbacks arise from using these elements of tutor talk and netspeak in synchronous chat consultations? How can we design a tutor-training program to prepare tutors to navigate synchronous chat consultations?
At the time of this study, our center at a large public, doctoral-granting institution in the Midwest had only recently begun offering online synchronous chat consultations. Our director perceived synchronous chat consultations as more interactive than the asynchronous email consultations offered at the center for several years. With the university’s then-recent migration to the Google platform, our director viewed chat consultations as a logical alternative to offer students; thus, she chose to pilot these consultations among her robust staff of undergraduate tutors from a range of disciplines.
Tutors received no additional training for synchronous chat consultations during the semester in which the chat consultation option was piloted, though they had previously received some training for asynchronous tutoring. The training for asynchronous tutoring involved reading scholarship and tutor-training materials about online writing conferencing. The tutors worked with one of the two graduate assistants at the center to read and analyze sample tutor feedback and generate their own hypothetical responses to student texts submitted for email tutoring.
Only four chat consultations were hosted in the term during which our study occurred. We received IRB approval to study the chat transcripts, and we collected signed informed consent forms from both tutors and writers to analyze their chat consultations. Unfortunately, demographic information for tutors and writers were not collected during the pilot run of the online consultations, and we did not request IRB approval to collect such data, either.² Therefore, we cannot draw connections between tutor and writer demographics and the patterns that emerged in the consultations. All four consultations were used for this exploratory study. Students were not recruited to use the online chat consultation. Those students who saw this consultation option advertised on the website and signed up to use it also consented to have their transcripts used for this study.
Using a deductive analytical approach, we coded the transcripts using the tutor-talk features we know exist in face-to-face consultations as well as those netspeak features we know exist in digital conversations. By reviewing the transcripts for these pre-determined elements, we aim to compare these online synchronous consultations to traditional face-to-face consultations. We attempt to assess the appropriateness of traditional tutor-talk and netspeak features in a limited set of online consultations to develop a heuristic others can use to analyze their own tutors’ chat transcripts or a larger data set for future research.
Each transcript was reviewed for thirteen coding categories (defined in table 1 and 2): three essential features of a consultation arc (Auten 2), four essential features of teaching/tutoring (Fanselow 21; Davis et al. 29), and six elements of netspeak (Crystal 255). We coded for both tutor-talk and netspeak elements, including the following: opening, connecting, closing, structuring, soliciting, responding, and reacting; emoticons, abbreviations, mistyping, sentence-initial capitalization, lowercase proper nouns, and full-stop punctuation. Each author read through the transcripts and coded them separately. Then, we compared our coding, negotiated coding discrepancies, refined our coding scheme and definitions, and reviewed the documents again to ensure consistency in our coding.
We acknowledge that follow-up interviews might have added another level of nuance to our analysis. Such interviews could help us understand why students choose online chat consultations and could elucidate the relationship between the patterns observed in online chat consultations and face-to-face consultations. We could envision asking students the following questions: How do experiences with face-to-face consultations compare to experiences with synchronous chat consultations? Which type of consultation is preferred and why? Which consultation type best helps to shape the writing process or product more effectively, and in what ways? Because this exploratory study was retrospective, the student tutors and writers did not consent to follow-up interviews. Future researchers might conduct such interviews with students who participate in synchronous chat consultations.
Results and Discussion
In our analysis of synchronous chat consultations, we found that several patterns of tutor talk that occur in face-to-face consultations also occur in synchronous chat consultations. We speculate that the similarities between the two types of consultations stem from the dynamic, real-time nature of synchronous chat, the parallels between oral and online instant-message dialogue, and the comfort many students feel with online communication. The transcripts show synchronous consultations have the potential to quickly, effectively build rapport, yet that rapport can be put at risk when tutors dominate the consultation through too much structuring. Based on tutor-talk conventions and best practices in writing center pedagogy, we argue that writing tutors ought to spend more time in these conversations soliciting and reacting to writers’ agendas and responses rather than structuring the conversation with their own agendas, lessons, or instructions. We also argue that some patterns in tutors’ use of netspeak during chat consultations have the unique potential to establish rapport with writers and increase their comfort with the medium. We encourage writing center administrators to train tutors about the appropriate use of netspeak in online consultations.
In this section, we describe the trends in tutor talk and netspeak we identified in these transcripts. We also illustrate these trends with representative exemplars and suggest some implications for tutor training and development. We draw our examples from four synchronous chat consultation transcripts:
Transcript 1 is a consultation about an early draft of the student’s paper; the writer does not articulate specific concerns about the paper at the beginning of the consultation, and ultimately, the tutor and writer discuss introducing quoted material, writing the thesis statement, and some wording issues.
Transcript 2 is a consultation about a literature review paper; the writer identifies the requirements for the paper at the beginning of the consultation, and they proceed to discuss the purpose of a literature review, the writer’s thesis statement, the alignment of the thesis with the content in a specific section, and some features of APA style.
Transcript 3 is a consultation about a literature review paper; the writer identifies her thesis statement as her main concern at the beginning of the consultation, and they focus thereafter on the thesis statement, the content and purpose of the introduction section, the purpose of a literature review, and some sentence-level issues.
Transcript 4 is a consultation in which the writer identifies brainstorming a paper topic as her main concern; they talk about the requirements for the paper followed by the writer’s topic idea and supporting examples.
Tutor Talk
Overview of Tutor Talk Findings
Our analysis of tutor talk in these four chat consultations suggests that soliciting remarks often leads to writer-centered learning and that tutors seem to use structuring comments as a fallback to ensure that the consultation moves forward. In this section, we argue that the transcripts show clear potential for reproducing the most effective features of face-to-face tutor talk in a synchronous chat context, especially when the document is viewable by both writer and tutor. When consultations utilize document-sharing software, tutors and writers can reproduce the dynamic, engaging nature of face-to-face consultations; on the other hand, synchronous chat consultations that lack document sharing require more time to describe and explain the written text and its components. For example, in one interaction within our corpus, the tutor says, “I am having trouble identifying your thesis, could you highlight it for me please?” Using document sharing, the writer highlights the thesis on their shared screen, mimicking how a writer might point to the sentence in a face-to-face session. Without document sharing, the writer would instead need to explain, “My thesis is the third sentence in the first paragraph, beginning on line 5 with the word ‘therefore.’”
In these transcripts, document sharing allows tutors’ solicitations of writers’ responses to push writers to take ownership over their revising processes and engage in active conversations about their writing. When tutors rely on structuring, writers seem to respond more passively in the consultation but remain receptive to tutors’ ideas and suggestions. Our claim that more controlling directive structuring responses appear less effective than solicitations takes into consideration scholarship that evaluates the amount and nature of teacher or tutor talk during writing consultations. While Carolyn Walker’s research suggests that less teacher or tutor talk does not guarantee that writers perceive writing consultations as more effective (72), Jessica Williams’s research suggests that writers who participate more actively in tutoring consultations are more likely to implement tutor feedback during their subsequent revision processes (173). Thus, we conclude that, in the context of our analysis, tutors who take more turns throughout the consultation engage in less back-and-forth discussion with writers. In these cases, writers receive more advice, suggestions, and direction, which may help writers who lack a clear plan but may also disempower writers from making their own decisions and revisions. Because tutors build less rapport when they dominate with too many directives, writers may ultimately demonstrate less confidence in taking ownership over their writing and implementing needed revisions.
In contrast, when tutors use soliciting to build rapport, writers seem more likely to take ownership over their writing process and product. For example, table 3 shows that overall, tutors include a greater proportion of what appears to be unintentional directive structuring comments than solicitations. In contrast to the overall trend, though, the tutor from transcript 4 uses a greater proportion of soliciting (19 statements) than structuring statements (5), and, as a result, the writer generates a greater proportion of responses (24) than the writers in the other three consultations. Given Williams’s findings that writers who participate more actively in writing center consultations are more likely to accept and implement tutors’ suggestions (173), we assessed consultations with more active writer talk as more likely to be successful, productive consultations.
Representative Exemplars
Early in the conversation, the tutor in the following excerpt asks the writer to explain the assignment before using solicitation to encourage a more specific, detailed response:
Tutor:
alright, [sic] what can you tell me about your assignment?
Writer:
its very broad
it just has to be something about discrimination or stereotypes
like in the media
Tutor:
ok, do you have anything in particular in mind? something that interests you or
something you'd like to look into? (Transcript 4: Passage 1)
Here, the writer initially provides a relatively vague description of the instructor’s expectations, and in response, the tutor solicits the writer to suggest some potential topics for the project. The tutor’s solicitation seeks the student’s own agenda and goals, which Walker’s research suggests increases the likelihood that the student will express satisfaction with the consultation (80). By probing the writer, the tutor prompts her to participate actively in a meaningful conversation about the assignment; she uses specific, leading questions rather than controlling, directive statements or feedback focused on her own concerns. Furthermore, the tutor’s use of the pronoun “you” in her questions emphasizes the writer’s autonomy and ownership over her writing, a key tenet of traditional face-to-face tutoring that establishes a positive respect-based rapport.
Later, when the writer in this consultation offers a possible area of focus for the paper, the tutor positively evaluates the idea and poses some guided questions to encourage the writer to become even more specific and engaged in the conversation about her writing:
Writer:
maybe to focus more on like stereotypes aginst [sic] women?
Tutor:
thanks [sic] a great start :)
Do you mean stereotypes in media?
or something else?
Writer:
yeah, but im [sic] not sure what kind of media I should use (Transcript 4: Passage 2)
Rather than supplying the writer with her own ideas, the tutor redirects the writer’s imprecise responses with strategic questioning that pushes the conversation forward while simultaneously building a positive rapport. In so doing, the tutor also seems to afford the writer ownership over her writing process and work. This type of soliciting promotes a response from the writer, which demonstrates the problems the writer faces as she works to revise the paper. The writer’s response also functions as a form of structuring. Although she deems the tutor’s ideas as helpful—noting “yeah” and mentioning the “media” she plans to use in the paper—her implicit query, “I’m not sure,” structures the next segment of the consultation. When the writer admits her uncertainty about what to do next in her writing process, she conveys a sense of her concerns and provides a clear path forward for the conversation. Clearly, the writer trusts the tutor’s input, seeking out her advice throughout the consultation and engaging in a give-and-take of solicit-and-structure to build a trusting rapport between them.
Subsequently, the tutor in this transcript uses solicitation to engage the writer in a critical discussion about the content of her written work:
Tutor:
well what are some examples you can think of with stereotyping women in media?
are there any advertisements/shows/news stories that come to mind?
Writer:
i know a lot of television today can stereotype women into categories
such as the perfect house wife
when in real life its not exactly like tah [sic]
that*
Tutor:
exactly! so how women are portrayed in television might be a good place to start
can you think of any tv shows specifically that create the "perfect housewife"
image?
Writer: well the show real housewifes [sic]
even though they say they are "real house wifes" [sic] they don’t exactly act like it
Tutor: good example. can you think of other stereotypes from tv [sic]? other than the
housewife?
Writer: well shows on mtv [sic] like jersey shore make out all the girls t [sic] be partiers
when not everyone is (Transcript 4: Passage 3)
Here, the tutor asks more open-ended, reflective questions, soliciting the writer to brainstorm about how to expand the content and supporting details in one section of her paper. The writer responds with specific examples, taking ownership over her argument rather than allowing the tutor to supply the examples. Their rapport becomes even clearer when the writer volunteers several examples. The tutor’s hands-off approach serves to push the writer to do the thinking and undertake the task of developing evidence to support her thesis, continuing to develop the writer’s confidence. The tutor’s reactions to the writer’s responses seem to positively reinforce her efforts. Moreover, the tutor’s follow-up questions encourage the writer to continue generating ideas.
Unlike this tutor’s ostensible attempt to solicit the writer’s participation throughout the consultation, the other consultations in our data set involve a greater proportion of tutors’ overly directive structuring comments. These tutors offer more explanations of and instructions about what writers should implement in their writing. In these consultations, the writers’ overall passivity in the conversations suggests that, when overused, structuring can disengage writers in synchronous chat consultations. The writers respond in smaller proportions and demonstrate less general engagement and attentiveness than the writer in transcript 4.
For example, the tutor in transcript 3 uses structuring to explain her understanding of the goals of a conclusion and implications section in a research paper; her extended explanation seems to disengage the writer, potentially damaging their rapport:
Tutor:
then, in your conclusion you can give the ideas you came up with from analyzing all of the research, and then in your implications, you give your recommendation for how your conclusions should be applied
so going off of that idea of the purpose of each section would be my recommendation
Writer:
ok yes. Thanks, I know you highlighted the one sentence. Are there any things that seem obviousely [sic] wrong to you. (Transcript 3: Passage 1)
The tutor in this excerpt dominates the discussion in this passage, explaining in detail how she understands the rhetorical purpose of these sections of the research paper rather than asking the writer to provide her own understanding of these sections. To engage the writer more actively in the exchange, the tutor might have asked the writer to respond to her descriptions of the rhetorical purpose of these sections. The tutor might have also incorporated more solicitation to encourage the writer to demonstrate comprehension of those suggestions or actively discuss how to apply her recommendations. More solicitation in consultations like this one would take into consideration conclusions by Williams: student writers who respond passively in tutoring consultations are less likely to implement the tutor’s recommendations (189). The writer’s passivity in this exchange suggests that she does not understand or accept the tutor’s explanations of the rhetorical purpose of the conclusion and implications sections of the paper. In short, the writer’s passivity in this case implies a lack of rapport between the tutor and writer. As a result, the writer may be less likely to consider or use the tutor’s explanations during revision.
On the other hand, while the tutor’s structuring may not provide the writer with explicit advice or ideas about how to revise, the writer’s affirmative response suggests her satisfaction with the specific information the tutor offers and the consultation more broadly. While the writer exhibits some passivity, the tutor appears to have built some degree of a positive rapport by the end of the consultation. Her positive response to the consultation may bolster her confidence in her writing and her desire to continue her revisions. As Kastman Breuch and Racine note about asynchronous consultations, “The benefit of using this online environment for clients is that they can receive careful, well-considered responses to their own work that models the type of clear, communicative writing for which they strive” (248). Likewise, the tutor in this example models well-reasoned logic and methods for reading and understanding course prompts. Overall, the tutor here seems to be acting in good faith, attempting to help a student who is struggling with an assignment. Her structuring approach could be a drawback of defaulting to a directive method and engaging the writer less actively; alternatively, this situation could also be one that calls for more intentional directive tutoring (see Carino and Corbett), supported by solicitations to ascertain the writer’s level of understanding and motivation to revise. While their rapport appears weak throughout most of the consultation, by the end, the tutor and the writer appear to have developed a stronger relationship: the writer may have needed more intentional directive tutoring in this this case to provide her with some more concrete guidance.
The tutors in this study, though, also clearly needed intentional directive tutoring—that is, the tutors need specific, intentional directive training and guidance to help them determine when and how to implement intentional directive tutoring strategies. This is one area of our center’s tutor training that can be improved. In transcript 1, for example, a seemingly negative pattern of unintentional directive tutoring emerges. We observed this phenomenon in transcript 1 in passages 3 and 4. In the fourth passage, a directive tutor takes control of the consultation, and a passive writer half-heartedly engages in the consultation:
Tutor:
Okay that is a good argument, make sure you include this thesis in your introduction. However I would consider stating a large portion of the student body, instead of 80 %, this way you would not have to use a direct quotation in the thesis
Writer:
great, I will thanks. (Transcript 1: Passage 4)
In this excerpt, the tutor evaluates the writer’s argument and instructs the writer to incorporate the tutor-identified thesis in the introduction. Problematically, the tutor appears to assume that the writer understands the concept of a thesis and the rationale for including one in the opening of an essay; however, the tutor does not use solicitation to engage the writer in a discussion of the concept of a thesis. Perhaps because they do not jointly define the criteria for an effective thesis—a conversational move Walker suggests is necessary for an effective consultation (71)—the writer passively accepts the tutor’s advice and promises to implement it. Additionally, the writer shows no engagement with the tutor’s recommendations and no real evidence that she comprehends how to implement the advice. Although the tutor and writer both use positive language, no sense of rapport emerges; instead, the tutor provides what appears to be unintentional directive instruction and the writer offers passive acceptance. While intentional directive tutoring may have been useful to this writer, such strategies were not implemented by the tutor. Thus, this tutor could potentially learn more about her directive tutoring techniques by reviewing this transcript and her seemingly unintentional, overly directive strategies.
Solicitation moves that do not promote a positive rapport can further damage the development of a writer’s process by disempowering writers. When tutors rely on structuring via unintentional directive methods of tutoring instead of solicitation comments, writers may resist taking ownership over their revisions by assuming their work is already acceptable or by depending on the tutor to supply the “solutions” to their writing problems. For example, in the following excerpt from transcript 2, the tutor dominates the conversation, which seems to deter the writer from participating in a discussion about her writing:
Tutor:
as far as whether your paper looks like a literature review, my understanding is that it is still similar to a traditional argumentative paper, you just have more focus on other research
so if you're addressing what others have done in relation to your research question/argument and analyzing what they did and how it helps your work, then I think you're doing the assignment correctly
Writer:
ok that makes me feel better because that is what I did. (Transcript 2: Passage 1)
Here, the tutor describes the purpose and successful implementation of a literature review. When she implies that the writer has accomplished a task, the writer expresses relief that she has been effective rather than demonstrating more in-depth understanding of what she has done well. Moreover, the writer does not reveal comprehension of how to accomplish the goals the tutor suggests or how to recognize whether she has been successful in future written work. While intentional directive tutoring here might enable the tutor to explain key concepts to the writer, failing to follow up with solicitation and rapport building in scenarios like this one can discourage a writer’s process and growth.
Netspeak
Overview of Netspeak Findings
In addition to revealing tutor-talk features, our analysis demonstrates evidence of particular features of netspeak. These digitally specific communication patterns allow tutors and writers to establish common linguistic ground in a digital environment where many students feel quite comfortable, allowing for ample opportunities for rapport building between tutors and writers. Undoubtedly, individual differences between writers and tutors may influence how effectively netspeak can facilitate rapport building. For example, when writers and tutors have a notable age gap, the older interlocutor may not use netspeak at all or may use outdated forms of netspeak (e.g., older acronyms; emoticons rather than emojis). Similarly, in face-to-face consultations, demographics such as background, age, academic level, and socioeconomic status all play a role in establishing common linguistic ground. Some demographic factors—such as tutors and writers being in the same generations or from similar socioeconomic backgrounds—may still contribute to online linguistic common ground, but the common ground they create may be less obvious or may even create additional linguistic barriers. Hypothetically, netspeak can be used to create common linguistic ground between a tutor and writer from the same generation who use the same social media platforms and language markers. However, netspeak can also create barriers if a writer perceives a tutor’s use of netspeak to undermine the tutor’s academic ethos. Table 4 shows the frequency with which specific netspeak features occur in the four consultation transcripts we examined. Overall, the tutors and writers in our study employ netspeak in their conversations in ways that enable a comfortable, accessible writing consultation.
Representative Exemplars
One example of how tutors can utilize netspeak to create common ground appears when tutors fail to correct typing errors or capitalize proper nouns and sentence-beginning words (see table 4). These typing conventions may represent tutors’ attempts to connect with writers via shared digital literacies. For example, this exchange occurs in transcript 4:
Tutor:
so what are you working on today?
Writer:
i just need some help developing a topic for my paper
Tutor:
alright, what can you tell me about your assignment?
Writer:
its [sic] very broad (Transcript 4: Passage 4)
The writer’s choice to end turns by pressing “enter” rather than by using sentence-ending punctuation (Crystal 255) reveals her comfort chatting with the tutor in this digital space; the writer does not seem concerned with writing “properly,” perhaps signaling her comfort with the tutor and the online writing consultation context. Although their strategies for ending sentences differ, the tutor and writer seem to understand each other’s techniques because of their shared digital literacies; in short, they jointly create a space in which they both feel at ease. On the other hand, if the tutor had used appropriately capitalized sentence-beginning words, she may have promoted the writer refining her academic writing practices. Tutors’ switching between netspeak and Edited Academic Discourse could be a means of maintaining rapport while modeling accepted academic literacies. To offer the most effective modeling, though, tutors might switch between netspeak and Edited English more consciously and consistently. For example, this tutor could model sentence-beginning capitalization more regularly; she could also model sentence-ending breaks more consistently by using either a hard return or punctuation every time, rather than occasionally using periods and occasionally using a hard return.
While using other characteristics of netspeak can be potentially rapport building, such informality may fail to model formal academic writing, which Kastman Breuch and Racine argue can be one benefit of a text-saturated tutoring environment (248). For example, in transcript 2, the tutor’s use of lowercase proper nouns and absent sentence-initial capitalization, though common in netspeak, does not set a formal academic tone for the chat consultation:
Tutor:
what is your paper called so I can find it? or what is the file name
Writer:
it should say draft2 (Transcript 2: Passage 2)
A more formal tone might model the standard writing conventions expected in academic contexts and could provide writers with an opportunity to practice academic tone in a low-stakes context. When the writer mirrors her tutor’s informal tone, both the tutor and writer lose an opportunity to hone the academic writing conventions that college-level instructors expect.
Alongside using features of netspeak, tutors can create safe spaces to practice academic tone and style. For example, when the tutor in transcript 3 later chooses a more formal academic style, she provides the writer with a comfortable setting in which to practice writing standard academic discourse:
Tutor:
I'm responding to your statement, “We need to include the chapter and really I feel that that's what is kind of a second thesis, the sentence after the purpose of the paper.” So, are you saying that the sentence giving me the chapter information is your second thesis?
Writer:
Second thesis is The purpose of this paper is to explore the research done in the field of technology.
I just highlighted it can you see it.
Tutor:
oh ok. In that case, I think you could incorporate the chapter information earlier in the introduction. I think its current placement distract readers from your thesis and research question (Transcript 3: Passage 2)
In this excerpt, the tutor initially uses appropriate capitalization and punctuation, which the writer mimics three times, returning to appropriate capitalization and using some sentence-ending punctuation. This linguistic mimicking a la Pennebaker can be a strategic form of modeling, often working unconsciously in the writer’s favor and can even be a subtle form of intentional directive tutoring. Additionally, the connection between the writer and tutor that allows the linguistic mimicking to take place demonstrates the writer’s level of comfort and rapport, facilitating the writer’s willingness to engage with the tutor. As Kastman Breuch and Racine claim, “Not only do text-only [OWL] environments encourage students to write, but they also encourage tutors to write in the ways that writing centers promote: considering our audience’s needs, anticipating readers’ reactions to text, and writing in a clear, concise, and informative style that does not laud authority nor condescend” (248). If we train tutors to be aware of the tension between netspeak and academic writing, the synchronous chat consultation can provide students with tutors’ written models of academic writing in an evolving, student-centered academic space; in the process, tutors can enable students to practice their sentence-levels skills while discussing higher-order concerns in their written work. Through language modeling, tutors and writers build rapport, and writers strengthen their rhetorical knowledge and savvy.
In addition to expecting informal writing in these chat consultations, we also anticipated that tutors and writers would use emoticons in these interactions, but few appear in the transcripts. One might assume emoticons—or the more contemporary emojis—would be prevalent in these online consultation spaces, especially during opening and closing segments when tutors and writers establish rapport. Based on the scholarship on emoticons, we assumed that emoticons or emojis would be important tools for tutors and writers to use to mimic face-to-face interactions or create the same sense of tone and body language present in face-to-face interaction (see Garrison et al.). However, the transcripts in our corpus show only two instances of emoticons—both used by tutors rather than writers. Neither of these instances of emoticon use occurred during opening phases of the consultations, and only one occurred during the closing phase, as shown in transcript 1:
Tutor:
It was a pleasure working with you today [writer] :)
Do you need me to send an e-mail to your instructor notifying them that you had an appointment? (Transcript 1: Passage 1)
Here, the tutor uses a smiley face to develop camaraderie and signal her positive feelings about the consultation. Notably, the writer does not respond with an emoticon and instead chooses to address the tutor’s follow-up question instead. This response indicates that the writer accepted the emoticon at face value or understood it as a natural part of the conversation that does not require a response.
We expected emoticons in the opening and closing phases in part because established tutoring rituals involve expressing positive emotions and establishing or concluding the consultation with an overall positive tone (Auten 2, 4). Moreover, emoticons might be expected within the opening or middle phase of consultation as a rapport-building technique—either to set a tone of ease and familiarity or to emphasize a friendly demeanor. In our data set, one tutor uses a smiley face to respond to a writer in the consultation’s opening:
Tutor:
ok, do you have anything in particular in mind? something that interests you or
something you'd like to look into?
Writer:
maybe to focus more on like stereotypes aginst [sic] women?
Tutor:
thanks [sic] a great start :) (Transcript 4: Passage 5)
Here, the tutor uses the emoticon to underscore a positive assessment of the writer’s ideas about how to revise and move the paper forward. This rapport-building response strategy (Crystal 41) demonstrates how and why tutors might effectively use emoticons.
As noted, emoticons occur just twice throughout all four transcripts. Anecdotally, many people bemoan netspeak and worry that student writers will begin inappropriately using emoticons or emojis in their academic writing. However, based on these transcripts, tutors and writers appear to recognize the online consultation as an academic space where little room exists for this feature of netspeak. Rather than focusing on whether or not a statement needs to be softened with an emoticon (Crystal 41), tutors seem to be aware of the rhetorical situation in a writing consultation, and consequently, focus on consultation objectives: they write efficiently and concisely. As Crystal states, “In traditional writing, there is time to develop phrasing which makes personal attitudes clear; […] And when they are missing, something needs to replace them” (41). Rather than utilizing emoticons, the tutors in this study follow Kastman Breuch and Racine’s advice and practice effective audience awareness through their own careful writing (248). Ultimately, rapport building among the tutors and writers in our study does not rely heavily on the use of emoticons or emojis.
Conclusion and Practical Implications
While the consultations in our analysis occur in a digital space, they still retain the purpose and form of face-to-face writing consultations and should, therefore, implement some of the best practices of traditional face-to-face consultations. Our findings from this exploratory study suggest that these tutors may be inclined to dominate the conversations or use non-academic digital writing conventions in online chat consultations. Our results align with Wolfe and Griffin’s findings, which show “online conferencing environments may become consultant focused” because “consultants initiated and controlled significantly more of the discourse” in one of the online environments they studied (72). Our tutors’ more directive tendencies may stem from lack of sufficient training and practice in both directive tutoring and synchronous chat consulting or from habits they may have formed in face-to-face consultations. Another possibility is that these tendencies arise from the medium itself, which enables tutors the freedom to tutor without real-time observation by other tutors and supervisors; in our open-floor-plan center, face-to-face consultations are often overheard by other tutors and supervisors, and this dynamic may affect what tutors say and how they engage with writers. Although we cannot generalize our findings to offer a robust set of best practices, the results of our analysis provide some avenues for future research and a heuristic for writing center directors to use in analyzing synchronous chat consultations they may be piloting or implementing in their own centers.
Because our study is a limited four-transcript case study of a pilot program, we cannot claim that these consultations represent other synchronous chat consultations. Neither can we claim that all chat consultations will be successful or afford writers the same sorts of agency they might possess in other types of sessions, in other settings, and under other ideological approaches to writing instructions and center philosophies. Finally, we also cannot claim that the strategies that would have improved these consultations are the same strategies that will improve other types of synchronous, online consultations at other institutions and with other student populations.
However, our study demonstrates the need to pay attention to how tutors and writers use a center’s technologies: both the face-to-face table in the physical center as well as the digital chat room and whiteboard. Because our study and Wolfe and Griffin’s study demonstrate a preponderance of tutor turn-taking, writing center administrators should be aware of how tutors and writers interact in their spaces and should closely examine whether or not those interactions align with their centers’ philosophies. Our director firmly grounds our center in non-directive tutoring philosophies, yet our analysis demonstrates that these tutors sometimes defaulted to ineffective, unintentional directive pedagogies when working synchronously online. Obviously, this misalignment of pedagogy and philosophy is problematic for our center, and future research might explore this misalignment via tutor training that addresses some of the pitfalls and advantages of tutor-talk features demonstrated across these transcripts.
Overall, the consultations in this study appear to successfully build rapport, though tutors often tend to use unintentional directive methods as a default strategy. While tutor turn-taking may be higher in online conferences, writers’ positive reactions suggest that they may still benefit from the interaction just as they might benefit from face-to-face sessions using more directive methods of tutoring. However, their passive engagement and dismissive positive comments suggest the writers in tutor-dominated, structuring-driven consultations may take less ownership of their writing processes and revisions. Future research might conduct a similar study in a center that trains tutors to use directive-tutoring techniques intentionally; such research might be able to assess whether those tutors more appropriately assess and implement directive tutoring.
Implications for Tutor Training
In analyzing these four synchronous chat-based consultations from our writing center, we identified some tutor-training activities that may help tutors develop an awareness of their chat tendencies so they can intentionally maximize productive and minimize problematic responding patterns. Because the transcripts we analyzed occurred during a pilot semester of the synchronous chat consultation option in our center, our director and assistant directors lacked a specific direction for tutor training; our analysis of these transcripts provides some ideas for training our tutors and those at other centers implementing this consultation option. Ideally, tutors should be taught to use chat consultations to connect with students in a comfortable, safe space. Moreover, they should practice using these consultations to focus on writers’ concerns and agendas in ways that effectively navigate the non-directive/directive continuum while modeling effective academic writing.
A key tutor-training strategy involves making tutors aware of common online conferencing patterns and studying the types of patterns tutors employ when consulting with writers in online spaces. Through training, tutors can critically analyze how they tutor and what they can do to become more effective tutors. As Kastman Breuch and Racine argue, “Online tutors need training specific to online writing spaces” (246, emphasis in original) and “the use of a training activity that focuses on exploring written dialogues” in an effort “[to] encourage tutors’ sensitivity to the dynamics of the text-only environment” (249). Consistent with these suggestions, we recommend requiring tutors to review model chat consultation transcripts as a part of their training and to examine their own consultation transcripts as part of ongoing professional development.
We also recommend paying attention to tutors’ and students’ use of and access to different methods of communicating via chat consultations. For example, while all of our tutors typed their responses, we did not collect data on whether or not writers were using voice-to-text, dictation, or transcription software or actually typing their responses during the chat consultation. Training and research in these additional areas can improve accessibility of and discussions of accessibility with our tutors in various settings, not just online consultations.
The coding categories and analyses in this article can serve as a basis for tutors to analyze their own online consultation transcripts. For instance, tutors might read samples of effective synchronous chat transcripts and identify the other tutors’ uses of tutor-talk and netspeak features; then, they might compare such usage to the moves they make in their own online consultation transcripts. This exercise could allow tutors to identify ways to strengthen their own chat consultations. By analyzing their own written dialogues and interactions, tutors can reinforce critical writing center principles: prioritizing higher-order concerns and effective tutor talk during their chats with writers, using standard academic writing more consistently, and capitalizing on the socially productive features of netspeak to build a positive rapport with writers in an engaging, dynamic conversation. If tutors prioritize these elements, we argue that synchronous chat tutoring has the potential to benefit various student populations—some of whom may otherwise remain strangers to the university writing center.
Notes
See our section on Tutor Talk for an explanation of why we choose to focus on the downsides of directive methods.
Demographic information for writers include age, geographical location, race, year in coursework, etc. Tutor demographics, while also missing for this study, include tutor age, geographical location, race, year in coursework, as well as the number of years spent tutoring. The only demographic information available was sex: all tutors and writers identify as female.
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