Talk About Writing: The Tutoring Strategies of Experienced Writing Center Tutors offers a book-length empirical study of the discourse between experienced tutors and student writers in satisfactory conferences. It analyzes writing center talk, focusing on tutors' verbal strategies, at the macro- and micro-levels. The study details tutors' use of three categories of tutoring strategies-instruction, cognitive scaffolding, and motivational scaffolding-with each chapter of the analysis ending in practical advice about tutor training.

Jo Mackiewicz is a professor of rhetoric and professional communication at Iowa State University, USA. She codirects the Advanced Communication program and, in 2017, published The Aboutness of Writing Center Talk: A Corpus-Driven and Discourse Analysis.

Isabelle Kramer Thompson is an emerita professor of technical and professional communication and former coordinator of the English Center at Auburn University, USA.

1. Talk about Writing: An Introduction to Our Empirical Study 2. Literature Review 3. Methods 4. The Three Conference Stages and Tutoring Strategies: The Overall Results 5. Instruction Strategies 6. Cognitive Scaffolding Strategies 7. Motivational Scaffolding Strategies 8. Case Study: A Writing Center Tutor Becomes a Writing Fellow 9. Talk about Writing: A Conclusion to Our Empirical Study Appendix A: Conducting a Conference with a Student Appendix B: "Notes for Students" Form and Instructions Appendix C: The T5-S5 Conference Coded for Stages, Topic Episodes, and Strategies Appendix D: Extra Examples of Tutoring Strategies Appendix E: Questions Coding Scheme