While working at the reference desk here at St. Kate's, I noticed that students were often confused and frustrated by the different roles--and locations--of the writing center tutors and librarians. As a writing instructor and librarian-in-training, I was also torn. My directive was to help only with research and citation questions, but to send students downstairs to the O'Neill Writing Center if they had writing questions. But I'll admit I "cheated" more than once and helped students with spelling, grammar, punctuation, and usage questions as well as larger writing issues such as thesis statements, paragraph cohesion, and transitions when I had time. In every one of those cases, students were incredibly appreciative.
This experience raised questions I would like to explore in this project. When undergraduates have questions about their college research assignments:
- To what extent/in what ways do they use the reference desk librarians vs. the writing center tutors?
- What is their understanding of the roles of these different resources?
- How helpful do they find these resources?
- To what extent do the following factors affect their use/understanding:
- The location of the writing center (within or outside of the library)?
- The level of collaboration between the library and writing center staff?
- Others?
Who: Undergraduate college students, reference desk librarians, and writing center tutors
Where: During one of my observations for a reference class, I noticed the writing center at Augsburg College is located within the library. So, I am considering studying students at two private Minnesota colleges: St. Catherine University and Augsburg College.
Research methods: As of now, I'm a bit unclear about which of the three approaches Richards and Morse discuss (phenomenology, ethnography, or grounded theory) fit my research questions best, but I will likely use interview, observation, and possibly surveys in my research.
This looks good! The problem is well focused, arises from your own experience, and can be tackled reasonably well with a semester's work. As both a writing instructor and a librarian, you have a good understanding of student needs throughout the process from information seeking through writing, and how to respond appropriately. A comparison of how students use and think about two different library-writing center configurations in different institutions is a really good way to approach this! I can clearly see how this could lead to recommendations for improvement. Let’s discuss this more next Saturday. I’m sure others will good advice for you!
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