Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 20, No. 3 (2023)

Developing Purposeful Practices for Writing Center Introductory Presentations

Katie Garahan
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
kgarahan@uncc.edu

Justine Jackson Stone
Radford University
jjackson134@radford.edu

Brynn Miller
Radford University
brynnmiller96@gmail.com

Abstract

Marketing writing center services is an important task for Writing Center Professionals (WCPs), and a common promotional strategy is the introductory presentation, which WCPs often facilitate in individual classes. Our project assesses methods—namely an introductory talk and a mock session—used in introductory presentations we facilitated in 25 freshman classes. We surveyed students before and after our presentations to examine the effect these two methods had on shaping their perceptions of writing center services. A qualitative analysis of the results of our open-ended survey questions suggests that our introductory presentation, particularly the mock session, was successful at communicating our practices, but there is room for improvement. We explain how we use participating audience feedback to revise our presentation. Namely, we construct a conscious conceptual framework for our introductory talk and integrate meta-language throughout our mock session. Ultimately, the goal of this paper is to propose purposeful—or evidence-based—practices for facilitating introductory presentations. We present methods of data collection and analysis that other WCPs could use to assess their introductory presentations.

Introduction

When Katie began directing a young (3-year-old) writing center at Radford University in 2019, she was immediately concerned with marketing the Center’s services across campus. Marketing is a common task for new directors, but it is one that can cause pressure and stress (Bowles; Gellar and Denney; Caswell et al.). A common Writing Center promotional strategy is the introductory presentation, which Writing Center Professionals (WCPs) often facilitate in individual classes. Like many writing centers, we at Radford spent significant time facilitating introductory presentations in classes to spread our mission, get faculty buy-in, and convince students to use our services. In 2021, we facilitated 37 introductory presentations virtually or in person, interfacing with over 400 students. We wondered, are these presentations worth our time? Our project assesses an introductory presentation we facilitated in 25 freshman classes. We surveyed students before and after our presentations to examine the effect our methods had on shaping their perceptions of writing center services.

A few writing center scholars have developed projects focused on introductory presentations (see Bowles; Ryan and Kane). Bruce E. Bowles points out that while promotion is often part of a WCP’s job, our scholarship does not feature much research on marketing. He argues, “directors are left with an exhausting everyday task that—while potentially rewarded institutionally—is frequently not a part of their formal education and is commonly seen as separate from their formal endeavors” (Bowles 11). In his 2019 WLN article, Bowles focuses on developing content for introductory presentations, pointing out that previous research about content mostly relies on lore. Drawing from Muriel Harris, Bowles highlights the importance of “creating an effective frame” and describes his writing center’s use of the frame of practice audience (12). Bowles argues for the importance of classroom visits: After significantly increasing their Center’s introductory presentations, he saw a 276% increase in number of appointments over two years.

Like Bowles, Holly Ryan and Danielle Kane posit that “while classroom visits are a mainstay of writing center practice, virtually no scholarship has examined their effectiveness” (146).  Ryan and Kane’s 2015 study of classroom visits tests three interventions—presentation, podcast, and demonstration—against a control group to determine effective methods for shaping student perceptions of the writing center. They found that students who received a presentation or demonstration reported higher likeliness of visiting the Center in the future as compared to the control and podcast groups. Moreover, 20% of students who received the demonstrations actually visited the Center as opposed to 12% in the control group. Ryan and Kane’s results informed our presentation methods, as we will describe in the next section. 

Both Bowles’s and Ryan and Kane’s studies suggest that introductory presentations are an effective method for promoting the Writing Center, and our study aims to contribute to this scholarship. Our project seeks to both assess the effectiveness of our introductory presentation and explain how we use student feedback on our surveys to revise our presentation materials. Ultimately, we propose purposeful—or evidence-based—practices for facilitating introductory presentations.

Methods

We focus on presentations facilitated in one specific freshman course, University 150: Achieving Academic Success—a course that freshman with a GPA below 2.00 take in the spring semester of their freshman year. In the spring of 2021, we facilitated an introductory presentation in 25 sections of UNIV 150 via Zoom. We received approval from Radford’s Institutional Review Board, and our research was conducted in accordance with Radford’s human research guidelines. Though we conducted introductory presentations in other courses in the spring of 2021, this project focuses on these 25 presentations. Most of our presentations at Radford are facilitated in first-year courses, so the participant group made sense for our purposes.

Our UNIV 150 presentation was scheduled for an entire 50-minute class period, giving us time to administer surveys prior to the presentation and following it. Our presentation proceeded as follows:

1. We administered survey #1

2. We gave a 15-minute introductory talk using PowerPoint.

3. We facilitated a 10-minute mock session.

4. We administered an easy 5-question quiz using Kahoot

5. We administered survey #2

We used two main presentation methods: an introductory talk and a mock session. We included both methods based on Ryan and Kane’s results in which they found a presentation and demonstration to be effective methods of shaping student perception of Writing Center services. The introductory talk lasts for about 10 to 15 minutes and has three goals. First, we provide logistical information including our hours, location, and appointment preparation. Second, we briefly introduce our tutors by explaining their background, expertise, and training. Last, we explain that writing is a process (that is individual for every person), and we go over the common topics we see in the Center based on our client surveys, which include organization, development, planning, mechanics, and citations. 

After our introductory talk, the presenters demonstrate what a writing center session looks like. Ryan and Kane’s demonstration features a live writing center session during which the presenter asks for a student volunteer to act as a client while the presenter acts as tutor. Since our presentations were facilitated by director, assistant director, and graduate tutors, we created a scripted mock session to create continuity and ease our graduate tutors’ presentation nerves. Through this mock session, we aim to give students a glimpse of what to expect when they schedule an appointment and show the collaborative nature of a writing center session. The script begins with the tutor asking the student if they have questions or concerns and prompting the student to identify areas in their writing they would like to focus on. Additionally, in accordance with writing center scholarship (Mackiewicz and Thompson; Nordlof), the tutor in the mock session uses strategies to scaffold student learning. The script was written with the findings from Jo Mackiewicz and Isabelle Thompson’s study of “the tutoring strategies of experienced writing center tutors” in mind: The tutor uses instruction strategies, such as explaining and exemplifying; cognitive scaffolding, such as pumping and prompting; and motivational scaffolding, such as praising and being optimistic. Following our mock session, we facilitated a simple 5-question Kahoot game with questions about logistics like writing center location, preparing for a visit, and scheduling a session. 

We surveyed students before and after the presentation. Survey #1 included two open-ended questions. The first question was: Do you like to write? Why or Why not? We posed this question for two reasons: One, to get to know our audience; and two, to encourage students to generate ideas and access prior knowledge and experiences related to writing. As we discuss below, the responses to this question were more fruitful than we anticipated. The second question on survey #1 was: What happens during a writing center session? Survey #2 included 1 open-ended question: Based on this presentation, what happens during a writing center session? Our data set consists of the written responses to these three questions.

To analyze our surveys, we used methods of grounded coding following Cheryl Geisler’s Analyzing Streams of Language. We segmented our data simply—we kept each survey response to each question as one segment. To create coding schemes, the three of us read through the data separately and made notes about emerging themes. We then discussed common themes together and developed initial coding schemes for each question. We separately coded our data, discussed, and revised our schemes. Ultimately, we developed two coding schemes—one for the responses to question #1 (Do you like to write? Why or why not) and a second for questions #2 and #3 (What do you think happens during a writing center session). We include a brief description of each coding scheme in the next section and provide a more robust description in Appendix A.

Results and discussions: Do you like to write?

In this section, we first present the results of survey #1, question #1: do you like to write? Then, we discuss and interpret our results.

Results

We had 199 responses to this question. We first coded all responses as either yes, no, or conditional (see table 1, Appendix B). We coded responses “no” when respondents shared only negative opinions of writing, “yes” when they shared only positive opinions, and “conditional” when participants said their like/dislike of writing was dependent on a condition.

Beyond these initial three codes, we developed a 5-element coding scheme (see table 2, Appendix B and Appendix A). Table 2 (Appendix B) indicates the breakdown of codes for all 199 responses. The “other” category is fairly high but does not constitute adding another code because most of these responses were too general to analyze. To better understand why students like, don’t like, or remain ambivalent about writing, we discuss our results based on our original three categories (no, yes, conditional).

Only 26% of respondents said they did not like writing. Most “no” responses were coded either enjoyment, ability, or translation (see table 3, Appendix B).

Almost half of the students (47%) who responded “no” explained that they do not find writing to be enjoyable; in other words, writing is not fun. Common themes throughout this lack of enjoyment include writing being boring, time-consuming, and tedious. About 25% of the respondents who said “no” connected their dislike of writing to their ability. That is, they do not like writing because they are bad at it. One wrote that teachers often “take writing very seriously,” and the student “feel[s] like whatever they write is not good enough.” Another said they “can’t think like a writer.” Most hinted towards just “not being good” or “being bad” at it. The third most popular reason (14%) for responding “no” relates to translating thinking to writing. One respondent laments, “it sounds right in my head but when I put it on paper it never makes sense” and another explains, “I have a hard time putting into words what I want to say.”

Sixty respondents—or 30%—hold solely positive views of writing with no caveats. Not only does this group like writing; they love it. Most “yes” responses were coded either expression, ability, or other (see table 4, Appendix B).

Overwhelmingly (67%), students in the “yes” category like writing because it is a form of self-expression, creativity, or catharsis. One writes, “it helps me express my thoughts and keep myself in the best mindset I can be in.” Another says, “it gives me a canvas to put my thoughts and feelings on.” Others say writing helps them “let [their] emotions out,” “get ideas out,” “clear [their] mind,” and “relieve stress.” A smaller group (15%) of students in the “yes” category mention natural ability. These students say writing “comes naturally,” “is one of [their] strengths,” “comes easier to [them] than other things.” Others simply find themselves to be “good” or “decent.” Notably, a higher percentage of “no” responses (25%) referenced natural ability than those (15%) who said “yes.” The sample size here is small, so a generalizable conclusion cannot be made. It would be interesting for future research to examine if students who do not like writing view it as an innate or natural ability; whereas those who like writing view it as a skill to be honed.

A small majority—or 44% of respondents—have ambivalent feelings about writing. That is, their like/dislike is conditional. Conditional responses were more difficult to code than “no” or “yes” because answers often included more detail explaining students’ ambivalence. Whereas almost half of the “no” responses were coded as “enjoyment,” and nearly three quarters of the “yes” responses were coded as “expression,” the conditional responses varied (see table 5, Appendix B).

Like the “no” responses, the conditional ones highlighted enjoyment more than any other code. Many respondents explained what they enjoyed about writing, namely engaging interesting topics and learning new information, while some reference obviously unpleasant previous experiences, citing feeling pressured by time constraints and topics that do not interest them.

On the other hand, 19% of conditional responses were coded as expression: students said they liked to write when they felt they had the opportunity to express their thoughts. For instance, one said: “I do like to write sometimes. Sometimes when I need to vent out or let any emotion go I can write it down and feel better.”  Several in this category highlighted specific types of writing like “ideas for movies,” “creative writing,” “research papers,” “journals,” “fiction stories,” “music,” and “poetry.” It makes sense that conditional responses would pinpoint specific genres or types of writing because they were identifying instances where they do like writing versus instances when they do not.

Discussion: Adopting a Positive Conceptual Framework for Our Introductory Talk

These results did not align with our assumptions of student perceptions of writing. Upon analyzing our results, we realized that we assume students dislike—or even hate—writing, and we unconsciously built our approach to our introductory talk on this assumption. For instance, we took a negative approach when explaining the common topics students seek help with based on our post-session surveys. These topics include organization, development, planning, mechanics, and citations. Prior to this research, when the director, Katie, introduced these topics to students, she asked questions like, do you ever feel that your writing is disorganized, do you have a difficult time reaching page limits, do you get nervous when it’s time to sit down and write? She had students consider these questions—and even share if they wanted—and followed up with; the writing center can help! These questions come from a lens of deficit, an assumption that students have negative feelings about writing. Our results reveal that such an approach only targets a quarter of our audience, as only 26% of respondents did not like writing. To borrow terminology from Nancy Grimm–we were operating under an “unconscious” (11) conceptual framework that students generally do not like to write. Grimm argues that “when we understand student writers as active designers who are both capable of and interested in learning about the options they have for making and interpreting visual, oral, and printed texts, we work with them in more positive and productive ways” (21-22). Our results provide us a glimpse into how our target audience actually feels, allowing us to speak to them as “active designers” with nuanced ideas of writing. Throughout this section, we explain what a “conscious” (Grimm 16) conceptual framework for our introductory presentation based on our survey responses looks like. As Grimm reminds us, “conscious frameworks profoundly alter assumptions about students, about language, and about literacy learning” (16). Our conscious conceptual framework works from three tenets based on our codes (enjoyment, ability, expression, translation):

1. The Writing Center encourages students to engage what they enjoy about writing.

2. The Writing Center supports students’ increased writing self-efficacy.

3. The Writing Center guides students’ expression of original ideas in writing.

Let us first consider the responses coded “enjoyment.” The reasons students do not enjoy writing are not entirely surprising. Most folks have at some point found writing to be boring, time-consuming, or tedious. This sentiment is difficult to combat, but hearteningly only a small portion of the total responses focuses solely on writing being unenjoyable. Indeed, the conditional responses coded “enjoyment,” while ambivalent, include aspects of writing that they do enjoy, like engaging with topics they find “interesting.” As one explains, “if it’s [a topic] that I enjoy then I love to write.” Our conscious conceptual framework, thus, addresses the enjoyment of writing from this positive perspective with phrases like, “Writing can be fun, and the writing center supports what you enjoy about writing, like engaging with subjects that interest you and learning about unfamiliar topics through writing.”  

Another important group we considered when developing our new framework are those whose feelings about writing depend on their perceived writing ability or lack thereof. Self-efficacy—or an individual’s belief in their ability to effectively perform a task (Bandura)—is an important construct to consider when promoting writing growth (Schmidt and Alexander; Mitchell et al.). Pam Bromley, Kara Northway, and Eliana Schonberg found that frequent writing center visits resulted in increased writing self-efficacy. Anecdotally, our clients at Radford often mention increased confidence in their writing skills on their post-session surveys—something we did not explicitly mention in our presentation. Our revised conceptual framework draws from the literature on writing self-efficacy and includes client testimonials of increased confidence.

Lastly, respondents frequently write about the act of expressing ideas. “Translation” is similar to “expression”—both relate to articulating thoughts into writing. Expression—which for our participants signifies personal writing, personal thoughts, and even catharsis—is a familiar concept to the field of Writing Studies and brings to mind expressivist theories and pedagogies espoused by folks like Peter Elbow, Ken Macrorie, and Donald Murray. In the past couple decades, expressivism has “lost status and respect” among writing scholars in higher education (Goldblatt 438). Despite this, Eli Goldblatt calls expressivism a “tacit tradition” and argues that "commitments traceable to expressivist concerns” are reflected in contemporary composition scholarship (460). Importantly for us, participants who like writing as well as those who feel ambivalent about it find joy in writing when they are able to express their thoughts and emotions. As such, self-expression is a key element in our revised conceptual framework for our presentation.

Overall, respondents describe having an often-conflicting relationship with writing. Their ambivalence, however, should not be mistaken as indifference—they feel passionate about the topic of writing. For instance, one student writes: “contrived writing about something I don’t care about or am forced to do in a certain amount of time in a certain way frustrates and irritates me because I don’t believe good writing comes from that and that in [sic] drones our personal voices because it’s ‘unprofessional.’” This respondent, though espousing some negative feelings, clearly feels passionate about writing and astutely points out the false dichotomy between personal voice and professional/academic writing. The more time we spent on our analysis, interrogating our own assumptions, the more we understood that student perceptions of writing in general are crucial to effectively marketing our services. While these results may not be directly applicable to students in other institutions, our study highlights the need for other WCPs to examine their assumptions through empirical research. We hope our relatively simple methods provide a way to do so.

Results and discussions: what happens during a writing center session

In this section, we first present the results of survey #1, question #2 (What happens during a writing center session?) and survey #2, question #2 (Based on this presentation, what happens during a writing center session?) Then, we discuss and interpret our results.

Results

One hundred and ninety-nine students responded to survey #1, and 144 students responded to survey #2. In analyzing the 343 responses to the first and second survey, we developed a 5-code scheme (see table 6, Appendix B and Appendix A). Though Geisler’s method dictates researchers code segments with only one code, we decided to code for both tutor-centered/collaborative and general/specific. That is, a segment could only be tutor-centered or collaborative but could potentially be tutor-centered and general or specific. In this section we first provide results for the general versus specific codes and then the tutor-centered versus collaborative codes.

General v. Specific

As shown in table 7 (Appendix B), more responses were coded “general” in survey #2 than in survey #1. By “general,” we mean that the respondents did not mention a specific writing topic (organization, format, grammar, style, etc.) or part of the writing process (brainstorming, revision, etc.).

In survey #1, 32% of students mentioned a specific writing topic or part of the writing process, whereas 58% do not. Respondents mention the word “grammar” 30 times. Other specifics from survey #1 are included in table 8 (Appendix B).

The mention of specifics decreased slightly in survey #2 to 29% (see table 7, Appendix B). Differently than survey #1, only 3 participants mention grammar in their responses. Fewer specific topics were mentioned in survey #2 (see table 9, Appendix B). Respondents mentioned new topics, including analyzing or understanding a prompt, organization, development, and writing paragraphs. These additions make sense in relation to the presentation. As mentioned previously, the presenters include the specific topics of organization and development, as ones that often arise on post-session surveys. Additionally, the mock session begins with the tutor and client analyzing a prompt.

We also saw an 11% increase in responses coded “general,” meaning respondents did not identify specific writing topics or parts of the writing process in survey #2.

 Collaborative v. Tutor-Centered

We saw a significant shift in how students described the role of the tutor from survey #1 to survey #2 (see table 10, Appendix B). We will begin by discussing the results of survey #1.

In survey #1, 46% of respondents characterized tutors as teachers able to fix mistakes. Fourteen respondents used the word “teach” in their responses: for instance, “you teach about proper writing techniques,” and “teach us better ways to write.” Respondents also use words that indicate students’ lack of ability. One wrote, “They fix your writing and stuff you’re weak on” and another said, “I think you write and they correct.” A third responded “someone tells you how to fix your writing.” Others specifically highlighted tutor knowledge: “a person that is smarter than me helps me with something I don’t understand” and “good writers tutor people who aren’t as good at writing.” These responses harken to the image of a writing center that our field has long combated–a remedial place for bad writers to be fixed.

The number of collaborative-coded responses on survey #1 is similar to tutor-centered: 43% of respondents held a collaborative view of writing center sessions, referring to tutors as guides or helpers. Admittedly, we were surprised to see that this number was so high—we expected first-year college students to hold a tutor-centered view of the writing center before the presentation. Upon examination, we realized these collaborative numbers are deceiving. The word “help” is used 73 times throughout these responses, and the grammatical structure of the responses coded “collaborative” are often the same. Table 11 (Appendix B) provides examples of this sentence structure.

Even in positioning the tutors as “helpers,” the respondents often privilege tutor knowledge over student needs, goals, interests, etc. Grammatically, tutors (“they,” “someone,” “experienced writers,” etc.) are the subject of these sentences (see table 11, Appendix B). The tutors and the writing center—and not the needs of the client—are the focus.

As mentioned above and seen in table 10 (Appendix B), respondents describe the relationship between tutors and clients much differently in survey #2. Only 17% of responses were coded tutor-centered; a 29% decrease from survey #1. Additionally, the tone of survey #2 tutor-centered responses is much less harsh and condemning of the writer than the tone of survey #1 tutor-centered responses. None of the responses in survey #2 focus on the client’s lack of ability. While some respondents still refer to tutors as teachers, they use collaborative language to do so. For instance, one writes: “The instructor and yourself will review a paper that you have written,” and another says, “Talking to a teacher to learn how to write a better paper.” Neither of these responses condemns the writer. A few respondents refer to fixing mistakes, but they are less harsh than survey #1 responses (re: “a person that is smarter than me helps me with something I don’t understand”). One respondent on survey #2 writes, “They don't fix everything for you but tell you what is done wrong so you don't make the mistake in the future,” and another explains, “The tutors help you to pick out any mistakes in your writing.” Thus, the responses—while tutor-centered—have a more collaborative tone than the tutor-centered responses to survey #1.

Notably, we saw a shift in the number of survey #2 responses that referred to writing center sessions as collaborative. On survey #2, 79% of respondents described the session as collaborative, a 36% increase from survey #1. The nature of these responses were also different from the collaborative-coded responses in survey #1. While the word “help” is still used frequently—the responses are more descriptive and specific (see table 12, Appendix B).

Unlike the collaborative responses from survey #1 (see table 11, Appendix B), these responses indicate a conversational, nuanced approach to tutoring evidenced by words and phrases, like “conversational,” “pushed to think for yourself,” and “guide you.” Additionally, respondents more frequently used adjectives and adverbs throughout their responses on survey #2 than they did on survey #1 to vividly describe writing center sessions (see table 13, Appendix B).

Discussion: Making the most of the Mock Session

Our survey results—particularly the responses coded collaborative or student-centered—suggest that our presentation was successful at communicating that Writing Center sessions are collaborative, conversational, and student-centered. On the other hand, our results for the general v. specific coding were somewhat puzzling. We found the 11% increase in “general” responses from survey #1 to survey #2 to be surprising since we spent time in our introductory talk explaining writing process(es) and identifying the common topics students typically receive help with (organization, development, planning, and mechanics). The respondents write about the relationship between the tutor and client in a specific and descriptive manner on survey #2; however, they discuss writing and the writing processes more generally. We speculate that given the short amount of time students had to respond to surveys, they chose to focus on what stuck out most to them: the collaborative, conversational nature of writing center sessions.

Our results suggest, then, that the mock session—not the introductory talk—made the biggest impression on students. We decided to recode our survey #2 responses specifically for session parts. We coded a segment as “introductory talk” if it addressed writing process(es), writing topics, language from PowerPoint, tutor education/background. We coded a segment mock session if it addressed student needs or goals, conversation, collaboration, motivation, or steps of a session. Of the 144 responses, 21% were too general to code and 13% were coded other. For session parts: 49% of responses were coded mock session and 17% were coded introductory talk. In what follows we explain how we revised our introductory presentation to make the most of the mock session.

The mock session allows students to see a session unfold in front of them, so not surprisingly several respondents on survey #2 detailed the steps of a session (see table 14, Appendix B). Though responses shown in table 14 (Appendix B) identify steps like setting goals or an agenda, examining the prompt, reading the paper aloud; they do not directly name them as such. Thus, some respondents were able to glean certain steps by watching the session. In our updated approach to the mock session, the presenters directly identify the steps as they progress. For instance, a presenter begins by asking, “first, the tutor will introduce themselves and ask the client to explain their assignment and identify their questions, concerns, or goals.” Later, the presenter says, “now, the tutor will invite the client to read their paper out loud and explain why doing so is a useful strategy in a writing center session.” This guided approach allows presenters to directly bring the audience’s attention to important aspects of the mock session

Since our results suggest that our mock session was more effective than the introductory talk, we wondered if any student responses aligned with scaffolding strategies. As we mentioned previously, we wrote our script with the findings from Mackiewicz and Thompson’s study of “the tutoring strategies of experienced writing center tutors” in mind: The tutor uses instruction strategies, cognitive scaffolding, and motivational scaffolding. Table 15 (Appendix B) includes responses that align with cognitive and motivational scaffolding strategies.

We found that six responses aligned with the open-ended approach of cognitive scaffolding. These responses highlight the empowering nature of cognitive scaffolding—the tutor gently guides the student to take an active role in their learning and gain new skills. As Mackiewicz and Thompson explain, cognitive scaffolding strategies lead “students to find their own solutions to composing or content problems” (34). According to the responses shown in table 15 (Appendix B), “while tutors are not “book[s] of answers,” they actively engage with students by asking “various questions,” providing “tools” to help students “find the aspect of writing to make it really good,” and helping students “open their mind to question parts of their writing.” Three responses shown in table 15 (Appendix B) align with motivational scaffolding strategies; that is, the tutor “encourage[s] student writers by building and maintaining a sense of rapport and feelings of solidarity” to “increase student writers’ motivation” (Mackiewicz and Thompson 39). According to the responses in table 14 (Appendix B), tutors will not “judge,” “criticize,” or tell you “NO YOU’RE WRONG.” Instead, they use “constructive and mindful” methods to “guide you along.” Not many responses easily aligned with scaffolding strategies, though we prioritize such strategies in our mock session script.

In our updated presentation, we integrate meta-language into the mock session to highlight scaffolding strategies. Presenters do not necessarily need to use the words “cognitive” or “motivational” scaffolding, but can explain the process to the audience so they can recognize the strategies being showcased. Presenters explain, for instance, “During this mock session, you will observe a tutor using strategies to motivate the client, like praising their work and being optimistic.” Additionally, presenters say of cognitive scaffolding: “You will see a tutor use strategies to encourage the client to think critically about their own work. For instance, in this session, you’ll hear the tutor asking open ended questions to engage the client in a conversation about the best way to address revisions needed in the first body paragraph.” Once the mock session is over, the presenters facilitate conversations with the audience about specific strategies they noticed. Using meta-language to talk about scaffolding strategies provides the audience with language to understand and talk about the writing center. Giving the audience time to reflect allows them to solidify their learning.

Our findings allow us to see how our methods shape the audience’s perceptions of our work and provide us with insight on how we might sharpen our methods for greater impact. We hope our results—in conjunction with the findings of Ryan and Kane—encourage WCPs to include session demonstrations in their introductory presentations and guide audience understanding using meta-language and reflection.

Limitations

Our study has several limitations. First, we conducted research at one university, so our results are not directly applicable to other institutions. Second, our participants are academically homogenous: They are all first-year college students taking UNIV 150, a course designed for students at risk of attrition. Our results are not generalizable across all groups of students. It is possible that students more familiar with campus life or in better academic standing could have different views of writing and the writing center. Third, we conducted all 25 presentations via Zoom due to the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic. In-person presentations might yield a different level of engagement with the introductory presentation.

Conclusions and future research

Ultimately, this project allowed us to assess our current marketing strategies and develop introductory presentations that directly target our audience and carefully construe our mission to future clients. Our results suggest that our introductory presentation is successful at communicating our practices, but there is room for improvement. We revised our presentation by constructing a positive conceptual framework for our introductory talk based on three tenets: the Writing Center encourages students to engage what they enjoy about writing, the Writing Center supports students’ increased writing self-efficacy, and the Writing Center guides students’ expression of original ideas in writing. Additionally, we revised our mock session by integrating meta-language that directly guides the audience through the steps of a session and the scaffolding strategies tutors employ.

This project contributes to the growing body of RAD research (replicable, aggregable, and data-supported) in Writing Center studies. As we mentioned in the previous section, our results may not be directly transferable to Centers in different universities. As Dana Lynn Driscoll and Sherry Wynn Perdue point out, however, “While each institution and individual writing center is certainly unique, [...] [w]e believe we have much shared practice across centers, and additional RAD research in a variety of centers may aid in our understanding of how to best engage in these shared practices” (121). As WCPs continue to share their research and assessment practices, our field develops a nuanced understanding of effective marketing strategies. The methods we used to collect and analyze our data are fairly simple and thus easily usable by other WCPs seeking to assess their introductory presentations.

There are opportunities for further Writing Center research into effective marketing strategies. Anecdotally, our presentations were effective in shaping instructor perceptions at Radford. We found in the coming semesters that UNIV 150 instructors often complemented our methods, continued to ask us for future presentations in their courses, and referred us to other instructors across campus. We did not empirically study how instructor perceptions might be shaped by introductory presentations, but that is certainly an area of future research. As we mentioned previously, we conducted our study solely on Zoom presentations; future research might compare results from Zoom and in-person presentations. Additionally, we learned through this experience that a mock session requires two presenters, and Centers are not always able to divert resources from tutoring to presentations. A future study could examine the effectiveness of pre-recorded mock sessions. Lastly, as argued elsewhere (see Garahan and Morrison), assessment methods, like Ryan and Kane’s and those used in the present study can potentially be adapted to assess other writing workshops, as workshop practices remain understudied (Garahan and Morrison). We hope this study has contributed to other calls (see Bowles; Ryan and Kane) for research focused on effective marketing strategies.

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Appendix A: Coding schemes

Survey #1, Question #1: Do you like to write? Why or why not?

Expression (E)

-   Refers directly to expressing oneself (“it helps me express my thoughts,” “I can express how I feel about a topic”)
-   Refers to creative or personal writing (“It’s one of the creative outlets I use,” “I like to write creatively”)
-  Refers to writing being cathartic (“Sometimes when I need to vent or let any emotion go I can write,” “it is a relaxing method to help clear your mind”)

*Note: when deciding between expression and enjoyment, consider that expression is related to the action of writing (express, create, etc.). Enjoyment is related to the emotions or the way writing makes students feel (bored, having fun, etc.).

Enjoyment (EN)

-  Refers to writing being boring (“if its boring then I’m stuck,” “it can feel a little boring”)
-  Refers to writing as time consuming (“it takes up too much time,” “it takes a long time”)
-  Refers to not enjoying writing (“I do not enjoy it,” “it is tedious”)
-  Refers to writing being enjoyable or interesting (“I like to write when it’s something I can easily relate to or a subject I like,” “I like writing when it’s a topic that I enjoy”) 

Natural ability (G)

-  Refers to being good at writing (“I am good at it,” “I can write a decent paper”)
- Refers to being better at writing than other assessment methods or subjects (“I would much rather write essays than take tests,” “it’s easier than math”)
- Refers to being bad at writing (“I never was to good at writing papers,” “I don't feel like my writing is good enough”)

Translation (T)

-  Refers to putting their thoughts into words (“I have a hard time putting into words what I want to say,” “it’s difficult for me to express myself through writing)
-  Refers to having trouble making their thoughts sounds good (“I have a hard time putting my thoughts together and making sure they sound good,” “it sounds right in my head but when I put it on paper it never makes sense”)
-  Refers directly to writer’s block or not knowing what to write (“I hit a roadblock and can’t figure out what else to write,” sometimes I can’t come up with things to say”)

Other (O)

Definition: Code as other (O) any response that does not fit into one of the above categories or are too general to categorize.

Survey #1, Question #2: What do you think happens in a writing center tutoring session?

Survey #2, Question #1: Based on today’s presentation, what do you think happens during a writing center tutoring session?

Tutor-centered (T)

- Refers to tutors as teachers (“they teach you how to brainstorm” “They teach you how to write”)
- Refers to tutors correcting, critiquing, or fixing mistakes (“look over things I’ve written and tell me how to fix them,” “you write and they correct”)
- Refers to tutors’ knowledge (“a person that is smarter than me helps me,” “Good writers tutor people who isn’t as good at writing”)

Collaborative (C)

-  Refers to the tutor as a guide, helper, or coach (“they are not an editor, but can guide you in writing your paper,” “they sit with you and work through your paper to help you figure out what you need”)
-  Describes the session as conversational (“as questions to see how you write and what you do when you write,” “its a simple talk through with advice and help,” “a conversational approach to help better the student’s writing ability”)
-  Refers to student needs and goals (“The tutoring session is tailored to the students specific needs,” “Explaining and assisting with any problems you may have”) 

General (G)

- Refers directly to non-specific writing tips (“They most likely give you writing tips,” “tips on how to use things that have to do with writing”)
-  Refers to non-specific writing help (“Help with writing,” “help with writing assignments”)
-  Refers to non-specific writing improvement (“give you suggestions on how to improve your writing,” “help with writing skills and ways to write”)

Specific (S)

- Refers to the writing process (“revisions or trying to put an outline together,” “help proofread your work,” “show us how to brainstorm”)
- Refers to grammar or mechanics (“grammar modifications, sentence corrections,” “help with spell checking,” “review your work for grammar”)
- Refers to organization, format, or structure (“help format papers,” “structure of your work,” “set up an essay”)

Unsure (U)

- Directly states being unsure or not knowing (“I am unsure,” “Not sure,” “Don’t really know,” “No idea”)
-  Asks a question (“You get tutored?,” “Helps you write papers?,” “my best guess is they tutor us on how to make a college paper?”)

Other (O)

Definition: Code as other (O) any response that does not fit into one of the above categories.

Appendix B: Tables