Efficiency and Effectiveness in Asynchronous Distance Tutoring in the Writing Center

McAndrew and Reigstad suggest that tutors should focus on higher-order concerns (HOCs) before working on lower-order concerns (LOCs). In Writing Center pedagogy, this currently holds true in both face-to-face sessions as well as in distance tutoring situations, such as email consultations, where clients receive a written response in which the tutor determines what will be focused on without immediate interaction with the client. It is assumed that what is effective in face-to-face sessions should be what is focused on in distance tutoring as well. There is little research into the effectiveness of this assumption; most literature focuses on transferring the rhetorical nature of face-to-face tutoring to a distance setting. This study explores current Writing Center pedagogy and its effectiveness in distance education programs. Additionally, this research identifies which suggestions and suggestive language result in a greater level of student revision through a corpus linguistics study