In the writing center I help staff, the heuristic we use to guide consultations is to 'focus on the writer, not the writing.' Obviously from a service standpoint this is smart, since we won't be open long if we alienate the people that choose to come to the writing center by ignoring them in favor of their work; this policy also helps us avoid becoming an editing service. But I suspect the real point of this dictum to focus on a writer and not on their writing is to avoid using what I call a product-oriented worldview during the writing center encounter, because to do so would be to blunt the positive impact of that encounter.

In reading Lester Faigley's address to the 2015 South Central Writing Center Association published last week in Praxis, specifically his discussion of how complex writing center consultations are in cognitive terms, I am struck by two things: the importance of writing center practice to writing center theory, and the immense research possibilities presented by writing centers.