writing center research project

Writing Center Director (You can photocopy multiple copies of these words and scotch tape them to the envelope.) For snail mail surveys, enclose a stamped envelope addressed to you or your writing center or wherever you want the completed surveys to go. I’ve pasted the survey below and have attached it as a Word document you can fill out and attach to a return e-mail. If not, you can print out your message in a small font and then photocopy onto postcards: Give it another week or ten days. Paula Gillespie, the writing center director at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Harvey Kail, the writing center director at the University of Maine, and I are working together to design a national study on the influence of peer tutoring for former peer writing tutors. This will insure that the post office will return the letter to you if they cannot deliver it; if a forwarding address is available to them, they will include it. Director, Writing Across the Curriculum Working on a research project can be challenging, time-intensive process that involves research, writing, more research, and more writing and revising. This site was built using the UW Theme | Privacy Notice | © 2020 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Be sure tutors understand that by returning the survey they are giving you their consent to use the data as you have described it. I hope that answering these will provide a good opportunity to reflect on your time as a Writing Fellow. Here are some logistical guidelines for observing the center and sessions: Take a look at the Writing Center schedule and find an hour that works with your schedule. Research with Human Subjects and Informed Consent. The results of the survey show that those who worked as tutors in the writing center were deeply impacted by their experiences they carried with them post graduation. The database won’t truly be completed until the project is over: in other words, your database is a work in progress. It has been an interesting three years tutoring at the University Writing Center (UWC) at St. Thomas University (STU) in Miami. Based on your experiences, how might we best develop the peer tutoring program at UM or MU? First and most obviously, you need a list of all the former peer writing tutors. The focus groups gave us an opportunity to preview some of the responses we would get to the survey and the tutors in conversation with one another sparked lines of response a questionnaire alone wouldn’t have produced. I hope that you remember the times you spent training and working as a writing tutor at Marquette. More recent information my well turn up. I often think of you and wonder how you are and what you are doing. Do these abilities play a role in your social or family relationships? And if you’re using email, you’ll want to come up with a subject line that won’t make your message look like spam. This was the advice we were given early in the survey’s history by our universities’ statisticians. With any luck at all, they not only will give you a new list complete with addresses, emails and phone numbers, but they can make it available to you in a suitable software format, such as Excel. We received responses from 41 consultants, a response rate of 76%. My interest in former tutors has led me to engage in a formal research project about the short- and long-term effects of having been a writing tutor in college. I find myself completely at ease, whether I’m talking to a laborer fixing a section of railroad track, or meeting with the top Executive at a Fortune500 company. There are a number of easy steps to help make sure that once the survey has been received, it is returned: I hope you got a copy of the survey I sent out a few weeks ago as part of the Peer Tutor Alumni Research Project. Harvey and Paula both videotaped their focus groups, analyzed the videos and sent a copy to one another for an outsider’s analysis. If you are already familiar with Excel or similar software, you only need to label the cells to suit your record keeping necessities. I know your response will be of significance to the Writing Center. Did those abilities you developed seem to be a factor in your choice of job or further education? I learned these skills in the small writing center at Concordia, which serves a small Lutheran, liberal arts college. University of Wisconsin-Madison Your research results will quickly repay the efforts to build the database. I expect that the responses I receive will also become part of an archive at the Writing Center Research Project at the University of Louisville, so that your response can be a part of a larger national study that I … Fortunately, the sort of research we are doing—research conducted in established or commonly accepted educational settings involving normal educational practices, such as research on the effectiveness of or the comparison among instructional techniques, curricula, or classroom management methods—is, once past the initial review, exempted from further review. Think for a minute about this communication situation. This site was built using the UW Theme | Privacy Notice | © 2020 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. You should, however, be sure to check with your own institution’s office of research and sponsored programs or human subjects review committee for the specific, local guidelines that have been set in place at your school. One wrote that working at the Writing Center “drummed into my head that WRITING IS COMMUNICATION. Be sure that your electronic mail mailings include clear instructions on how to return a digital version. If you have any questions about the purpose of this research or about how your responses will be used, please be sure to ask me. Working on a research project can be challenging, time-intensive process that involves research, writing, more research, and more writing and revising. The University of Maine requires Harvey, for instance, to include the following information as part of the cover letter sent along with the survey: For further information on research with human subjects and implied consent, be sure to consult with the office of research and sponsored programs or human subjects review committee on your campus. We were helped in our efforts to locate our former peer tutors by the Alumni Office, who also helped us develop our survey and accompanying letter. Tool to help students generate topic ideas for their research papers During the spring of 2009, a faculty committee utilized some of the results from this study to support a proposal to redefine the WA position as a fellowship rather than employment because of the educational benefits for the WAs themselves. How do you come to that conclusion? In the winter of 2011, we sent surveys to 54 former writing consultants. I’m looking forward to hearing from you. The questions themselves begin below. (This method assumes that an alphabetical arrangement doesn’t lead to some kind of hidden bias in the sample.). Here, you can find resources to help you improve your writing. The minimum postage for a first class letter will do the job. Don't panic! Our survey eventually diverged from the national version, because we were most interested in learning more about whether and how our peer tutor alumni have made use of their Writing Center experiences. If you feel you want to add anything I haven’t asked about, please do so. To see how we have incorporated these guidelines into our own cover letters, go to (cover letters) on our website. I am very interested to learn more about the ways you may have put your training and experience to work on the job and in your life. You could start by gathering names and addresses for as many of your tutor alumni as possible. Using the resources the PWTARP offers gave me insight into my own experience as a peer tutor during my undergraduate experience. One focus group was held at the University of Maine and another at Marquette. This actually works. And please be honest—there are no particular answers I’m looking for; what I’m looking for are honest, thoughtful, candid, and detailed reflections on your experience. To make an one-on-one consultation with a writing tutor, click here. This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels. Whether you need assistance getting started with an assignment or need someone to help you polish your work, the EWC is here for you. While writing varies, it takes about 20 hours of research, eight hours to write, and seven hours to edit and proof a ten-page paper properly and thoroughly, and longer for Capstone Projects that are expected to be 25 pages or more. 9. I know your response will be of significance to the Writing Center. The EWC offers an array of writing-related services to the University of Maryland Global Campus community. What influence did being a peer tutor have on your sense of yourself as an undergraduate at U. Maine or Marquette? •  The Alumni Office. How did you deal with that responsibility? In any case I trust that you will find it worth your while. The National Research Act (l974) spells these guidelines out in detail (http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/). ), And did you know there is a research librarian who specializes in your area of research? Paula Gillespie, the writing center director at Marquette University, Brad Hughes, writing center director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and I are working together to design a national study on the value of peer tutoring on former peer writing tutors. To see a before-and-after comparison, see http://www.mu.edu/writingcenter/newdigs. The group I surveyed included men and women from the age of twenty-two through forty who graduated anywhere between 1995 through 2013. A focus group that asks tutor alumni about long- and short-term effects of their tutoring might be one of the most gratifying professional events you ever have. During peer tutors’ service to the community, they learn about themselves as students and as individuals, making them more confident and also strengthening their communication skills. Some sample responses: Working with others and their writing has helped me be more understanding and insightful to the way other people think and communicate. 1-5), where we analyze what specific abilities and skills tutors felt they gained from tutoring, the range of career paths tutors followed, and how the abilities and skills developed through tutoring were instrumental to tutors’   success in a wide range of careers. Being expected to help other students improve their writing is a big responsibility. Does the length of time someone was a writing tutor influence how much they learned? One of Concordia’s strongest values is its emphasis of creating and serving a community. The responses to the survey made it clear to me that the writing center at Concordia creates and supports the space where students, peer tutors and professors discuss writing. By responding to the survey and returning it to me, you are, in effect, giving me your consent to use your response as outlined above. Soon after that deadline has passed, if you have not received a responses from all those with verified addresses, send a follow-up of some sort to those not yet heard from. The goal of any database is to provide current and sufficient information. The survey reached eighteen active email inboxes and I received seventeen completed surveys, a response rate of 94%. The resources I had access to were more than helpful for my personal works. That lively group (pictured above) came up with many fascinating research questions. We plan to continue our efforts to reach our alums, from whom we have received overwhelmingly positive responses about the value of the experience to both their college lives and lives after college. Though we have a small pool of alumni from which to draw (63 peer tutors and writing fellows over the past 10 years), we are encouraged by the number of responses we have received thus far. Phone: (800) 222-6544, Privacy Policy Legal Disclaimer Non-Discrimination Policy 7. It’s so exciting to be in the center of campus. It made me think about what I truly learned during my time as a tutor concretely. Be sure to include a self-addressed, stamped envelope with your snail mailings. A special thanks to session chair Jon Olson for taking these photos. Experienced, successful researchers often experience writing and researching as a back-and-forth process, and we're here to help you from start to finish. You’ve got a lot going for you given how positively alumni feel about their experience as peer tutors and given the warm relationship you had with your former tutors. 2. And unlike many surveys, where a 30% response rate is considered good, this survey has had, at least for us, response rates in the 80% range. Let me know if you’d like a copy of the paper. Thank you so much. What were the downsides to working as a WA? A collaborative writing project Stacie Renfro Powers, Courtenay Dunn-Lewis, and Gordon Fraser University of Connecticut Writing Center. Include an estimate of the time it will take for them to respond to the survey (we estimated thirty minutes). We looked for areas of the study in one another’s videos that we hadn’t considered. They will be delighted to hear from you. I will be describing this study and presenting preliminary results at a writing center conference in Pennsylvania in late October and at a composition conference in Texas next March. Within those groups, you’ll want to choose individuals randomly. As we’ve piloted this research project, we’ve enjoyed that kind of collaboration on our campuses; not only have we gotten some good advice, but we’ve also discovered colleagues who are very interested in our research projects and are eager to help. Based on our experience to date, you can expect something in the vicinity of 70-90 percent return rate! And it has helped me hone my analytical and critical thinking skills. The Writing Center's hours of operation are in Eastern Daylight Time. Tutors at the Ott Memorial Writing Center can support writers by helping. People have a tendency to think that if they missed the deadline, their response will no longer be valuable (or that they’re off the hook!). What did they learn about other disciplines, or what more did they learn about their own? I had more practice with writing than other students. If you have any questions about the Peer Tutor Alumni Project, you can reach me by phone at 414-288-3590. What’s the relationship between parenting and being a peer writing tutor? 600 North Park Street The specificity of a well-developed research question helps writers avoid the “all-about” paper and work toward supporting a specific, arguable thesis. We’ve found that 20’s a good number: enough to get some responses fairly quickly, which is enormously motivating; enough to fill the spare bits of time you can devote to this project; and enough to offer some variety of perspectives. Your database of former peer tutors will continue to expand and develop over time, but even a partial if current list will give you access to the thoughts, memories, stories, and insights of students who have taken their peer tutor training and experience into their professional and personal lives and made good use of both. These students were most interested in the questions: They expected alums to comment on how their writing and tutoring skills improved, but they did not expect to hear alums mention such things as the ability to negotiate, to maintain diplomacy, and to develop a reflective practice as something they took from their time as Writing Associates. I often think of you and wonder how and what you are doing at Farmington. Don't panic! Director, Writing Center How? So to spread out both the work and the joy involved in this research and to fit it into your already crowded work life, you might want to use a batch approach and/or select a sample of alumni to survey. 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Research results will quickly repay the efforts to build the database almost every post-secondary school has an of... Of these words and scotch tape them to check again course it ’ the! Winter of 2011, we sent surveys to c. 20 alumni, spread across the! 2009, we resent the survey, you only need to leave a message, but not necessarily to! On this research project complicated or made more difficult their occupations please share those ideas with me Concordia their. Both will be of significance to the subject or others that may reasonably be expected from research... To explore questions, please do so more of a family to me writing center research project a work space Privacy |... Keep this research manageable for me to originally conduct more research on the tutors.. Them, work well: //www.hhs.gov/ohrp/ ) the deadline and periodically reminding people start in! Is a research librarian students change in any case i trust that you can reach me by October 10th i... 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