Volume 21, Number 3, Autumn 2004

Invitation to Participate

Wendy Kraglund-Gauthier

St. Francis Xavier University

wkraglun@stfx.ca

Canadian University Writing Centres: Benchmarking Success

Dear Writing Centre Director:

You are invited to participate in a survey regarding the operations of the St. Francis Xavier Writing Centre. I am a graduate student in the St. Francis Xavier Masters of Adult Education program and for my thesis research I am evaluating the work of the St. Francis Xavier Writing Centre. I want to develop a tool to document writing centre goals and methods used by writing centre staff to assess attainment of those goals. I hope to compare the work the St. Francis Xavier Writing Centre is doing with the work being done by other Canadian undergraduate university writing centres and develop a standardized method to evaluate and implement “best practises” that can be applied to other writing centres.

You will need to spend approximately 60 minutes of your time to complete a survey and a future telephone interview. Your responses will be kept confidential and used only for comparative purposes. You have the right to refuse to participate in the proposed research. You may withdraw from the research at any time. However, your withdrawal from the research does not necessarily include the withdrawal of any data complied up to that point. Research results will be shared with Canadian university writing centres, regardless of participation.

You are encouraged to contact me by email, by telephone, or in person with any questions. My office hours are Monday – Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. You may also contact my advisor, Dr. Allan Quigley, at 867-3244 or aquigley@stfx.ca if you have any questions about the project.