Researching the Writing Center: Towards an Evidence-Based Practice, Revised Edition

“In their well-earned revised edition of «Researching the Writing Center», Rebecca Day Babcock and Terese Thonus offer the writing center community a rich resource for the next stage of our field’s research and development. No longer is the writing center community simply calling for replicable, aggregable, and data-supported research. Rather, the field is now producing more empirical research, a fact that Babcock and Thonus illustrate with their updated and comprehensive survey of new scholarship. Continuing to recognize the need for empirical data that bridges the gap between theory and practice, Babcock and Thonus again synthesize a vast, exhaustive range of scholarship focusing on writing centers, composition, and related studies from other relevant fields. Importantly, Babcock and Thonus call for writing centers to investigate other disciplines, urging us not to isolate ourselves nor imagine our work too unique to forge interdisciplinary connections. Their survey of writing center practices is the most up-to-date collection of important scholarship we have in writing centers and includes unpublished dissertations and theses. The references alone make «Researching the Writing Center» an essential part of any writing center practitioner’s library. Babcock and Thonus’s grasp of writing center scholarship uniquely positions them to understand the field’s research opportunities and needs, and they offer a variety of informed suggestions for relevant projects and methodologies. With a keen eye for trends, Babcock and Thonus also point out emerging areas that writing centers must be ready to investigate, including globalization, multiliteracies/multimodality, and professional issues. «Researching the Writing Center» is a go-to book for the newest writing center practitioner to the most veteran writing center director.”
Steven Price, Professor of Writing and English Secondary Education; Director, Writing Center, Mississippi College

“Arguing for empirical research in writing center studies is no longer necessary; as Babcock and Thonus show in this revised edition, the move toward empirical research is well underway. To support and facilitate this most-welcome progression, Babcock and Thonus comprehensively analyze and cogently synthesize the field’s empirical research, including a wealth of unpublished dissertation studies. In doing so, they have produced a detailed and useful account of the field and its trends that is sure to help writing center researchers continue their push toward evidence-based practice.”
Jo Mackiewicz, Associate Professor of English; Co-Director, ISUComm Advanced Communication, Iowa State University

"In «Researching the Writing Center», Rebecca Day Babcock and Terese Thonus give writing center studies a new understanding of itself. Up to this point, writing center scholarship was largely seen as theoretical or anecdotally based, and it was this perspective that often guided practice. However, Babcock and Thonus help us see that the field has long been made up of empirical research that can better ground our decisions and actions.”
Lauren Fitzgerald, Professor of English; Chair of the English Department and Director of the Wilf Campus Writing Center, Yeshiva University and Melissa Ianetta, Professor of English; Andrew B. Kirkpatrick Jr. Chair of Writing, Director of Writing Centers, and Editor, «College English», University of Delaware

“«Researching the Writing Center» is much more than another call for writing center scholars to produce more rigorous research. Instead, Babcock and Thonus lead by example throughout this book…. «Researching the Writing Center» is essential reading for any writing center professional interested in joining the call for data-supported research. This work is unique among current writing center books in its ambitious scope.”
Kathryn Denton, Program Specialist, Writing and Language Center, University of New Mexico