It seems that one of the main points of this introduction is that writing tutoring doesn’t just occur in collegiate settings, and that it can be useful in other areas. The authors talk about how they have led workshops in business and worked with parents in secondary schools to help their students tutor at home as well as worked in a college setting. As a tutor, that is not the most interesting thing that I got out of this introduction.
The thing that fascinated me the most was that they referred to tutoring as a process. I’m familiar with writing being referred to as a process, but I had never thought of tutoring to be a process. I can only hope that this is expanded on further in the book, as it wasn’t explained in the introduction. They also briefly say the kinds of things that will be covered in the book, such as what tutors do, and what they don’t, which would be helpful for beginning tutors, but there also seems to be a lot of emphasis on theory rather than practice, which may not be helpful to a tutor just starting out.
From the introduction, I would think that this book might not be the best for beginning tutors, as it seems to have quite a bit of theory in it. Not all beginning tutors are going to need theory in order to help students, even if it is useful. Also, according to the introduction, there is a chapter on how to conduct a course on tutoring, which is obviously geared more towards instructors than student coaches.
After reading the introduction, if I was reading this book independently in order to improve my effectiveness as a tutor, I’d probably only read chapters 4 through 6. These chapters are listed as being the ones that have the most direct importance to actual tutoring sessions.
Longman
This introduction seems to want to bring the focus to the coaches more than the authors, and talks about the structure of the book mirroring the training process for a writing tutor. This focus on the tutor seems to be more in keeping with a guide or a handbook for tutors than the previous book, which read more like the introduction of a textbook, with an overview of theories used. The authors also stress that writing centers are a growing field and that means that needs more experienced, able tutors.
The most interesting thing that I got from this introduction was that there’s a chapter in this book on conducting writing center research. This makes me think that this book might be a good choice for experienced tutors looking to expand their involvement with their center, rather than a beginning tutor. This is supported in that the book seems to cover a lot more in-depth subjects, at least from glancing at the chapter overviews, than the other two guides.
Bedford
The introduction for tutors is simply two anecdotes told about tutors the authors have worked with. These anecdotes stress the kinds of issues that new tutors have, namely the desire to help writers write a “perfect” paper and the idea that they have to follow all the guidelines all the time. These anecdotes work well because they provide concrete examples of what a coach may face when they start working with writers, and right from the beginning too.
To me, this guide seems like the most simplistic, since they seem to take a more “how-to” approach rather than a theoretical one. This might be the most helpful for beginning tutors, but there drawbacks because as a tutor gains experience, they may want to explore the research and logic behind tutoring methods, and those might not be explored in this book.
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