Spring 2019 Research

In continuing the land-grant mission of OSU, we also actively explore avenues of improvement not only in our consulting sessions but also in how we’re perceived in the community as a whole. As a result, we have a couple of research projects currently in development, with a few more on the horizon. The following outlines the motivation behind each research project and ongoing research activities.

Multilingual Writers

Writing center tutoring consists of a variety of speech acts involving one’s knowledge and understanding of different norms and traditions of communication popular in that culture in which a concrete instance of interaction takes place (Fujioka, 2012; Kuriscak, 2010; Stickman, 2014). One aspect implying the existence of different social norms and cultural values is associated with writing tutors’ suggestions and writers’ uptake of those suggestions. Using and interpreting suggestions made by both writing center tutors and student writers in appropriate ways is one way to ensure effective communication between tutors and students in consultations. Therefore, the purpose of the Multilingual Writers Inquiry Group research project carried out by Olga Muranova, Svetlana Koltovskaia, Jonathan Cannon, and Michol Miller is to examine and present similarities and differences that can be observed in students’ uptake of tutors’ suggestions in online writing center sessions; these sessions are organized for native and non-native English speakers. This study will identify different factors that may influence the actual level of students’ uptake of tutors’ advice in online writing center sessions. These factors may then be considered in writing center tutors’ training to ensure their effective communication with students.

STEM

The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Inquiry Group at the OSU Writing Center discusses current issues in STEM writing and how those issues intersect with the WC. Led by Chris Jones, it’s involved in identifying best practices for working with STEM writers in writing sessions and providing resources and training to Writing Center tutors. The group is also interested in researching the diverse ways in which STEM writers approach writing, within their own genre and in others.

A new facet being implemented in our WC this fall is the addition of inquiry groups. Inquiry groups are tutor-led, informal discussions where our staff can engage in small-group conversations without fear of ridicule on a wide variety of topics. For a given group, there will be an overarching topic that will be discussed, but given the informal basis of the discussion, the direction can be changed to go any which way. We believe this will enable our staff to think critically about the happenings of our center, analyzing areas of improvement, common problems encountered, and ways to increase outreach to typically underrepresented locales on campus. Our goal with these inquiry groups is to foster strong enough informal discussion about a topic that more information might be needed to address it, which would be a great lead-in to a new area of research.