Writing in Context: Redefining the Writing Center as the Multidisciplinary Hub for Writing in the New Millennium

Adaptive communication methods for new technologies and looming budget cuts present the perfect opportunity to revisit and reassess the writing center's purpose within higher learning institutions. Writing centers should be the "hubs" of academic and professional discourse, places that celebrate the different written conventions of each discipline. One modest goal of a writing center should be to help students bridge the gap between different disciplines and areas of focus. Students may become frustrated by the conflicting messages received from professors when encouraged to communicate with detailed and descriptive prose in one class while conversely encouraged to communicate with crisp, concise bulleted lists in another class. To help students navigate such rhetorical challenges, the writing center should function as a centralized home of discourse that is able to explain and demonstrate writing in contextUniversity Writing Cente

Pilot Trial of an Electronic Family Medical History in US Faith-Based Communities

In spite of the acknowledged importance of collecting family health information, methods of collecting, organizing, and storage of pedigree data are not uniformly utilized in practice, though several electronic tools have been developed for the purpose. Using electronic tools to gather health information may empower individuals to take responsibility in managing their family health history. The purpose of this study was to describe the feasibility and outcomes of introducing small groups to the My Family Health Portrait tool in faith-based communities using faith community nurses (FCNs). This pilot project adopted a mixed methods approach to assess the potential of an educational intervention delivered by FCNs for increasing the use of electronic technologies for organizing and storing family health histories among the general public. Treatment and control groups were recruited from four faith-based communities in north Texas using a parallel-groups quasi-experimental design. Qualitative data were gleaned from field notes made by investigators interacting with FCNs and observing their teaching. A majority of respondents believed that knowing one’s health history and passing it on to family and medical personnel is important. Those receiving face-to-face instruction on the electronic tool were significantly more likely to have written down family health information than the control group who received only an informational handout (χ 2 = 5.96, P = .015). Barriers to teaching about and using the electronic tool included FCNs’ lack of facility with computers in the educational context and FCN and respondent mistrust of electronic storage for family health information

Praxis, Volume 08, No. 02: From Triage to Outreach: Raising the Institutional Profile of Writing Center Work

Contents: Bolstering Writerly Instincts: Using Role-Play to Help Tutors Address Later-Order Concerns / by Kate Warrington -- Book Review: "ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors" / reviewed by Edward Quintana -- Bridging the Great Divide: Creating Partnerships between Writing Centers and Student Affairs / by Mckinlaye Harkavy -- Framing Versatility as a Positive: Building Institutional Validity at The University of Colorado at Boulder's Writing Center / by Alaina Feltenberger and Allison Carr -- Mad Man in the Writing Center: Why Don Draper and I have a lot in common / by Mark Thomas -- Money Doesn't Matter / by Molly McHarg -- Negotiating Authority: Perceptions of Age in the Writing Center / by Courtney L. Werner -- Staking Institutional and Theoretical Claims for the Writing Center / by Katie Stahlnecker -- Sustaining Argument: Centralizing the Role of the Writing Center in Program Assessment / by M.S. Jewell -- Writing in Context: Redefining the Writing Center as the Multidisciplinary Hub for Writing in the New Millennium / by Paulette GoldenUniversity Writing Cente