From the editor.

Harris, Muriel

This issue opens with Tracy Santa's essay on the importance of listening and the ways tutors can make visible this seemingly invisible practice. Next, Terese Thonus, Sheila Carter-Tod, and Rebecca Babcock examine a sample of people who conducted quantitative research on writing center topics for their dissertations and the academic positions they filled afterwards.

In an accompanying review of an earlier book by Rebecca Babcock, Kellye Manning, and Travis Rogers, A Synthesis of Qualitative Studies of Writing Center Tutoring, 1983-2006, Neal Lerner assesses the conclusions and possible use of their book.

Because the March/April issue of WLN crowded out our regular Tutors' Column, we're particularly pleased that we can include two essays by tutors in this issue. Amelia Hall introduces tutors to the possibilities of helping students incorporate rhetorically effective puns into their writing while Madison Sewell, aware of the arguments against required writing center visits, draws on her own experience to make a strong case for possible beneficial effects of mandatory appointments.

As we bring Volume 40 to a close, we are already looking ahead to bright prospects for good reading next year. We have several exciting special-topic issues in the works, and several of our writing center colleagues are writing CFPs for more special issues. Some of these special issues may have follow-up monographs filled with additional articles on the special-topic issues. We would love to add more new voices to the ranks of published writing center scholars. So I encourage you to contact us with ideas for essays, special issues, and our blog.

In the meantime, if you are looking forward to a few months off campus, we wish you a pleasant, stress-free vacation, free from worrying about budgets, reports, and those small stresses of daily life in a writing center.

Muriel Harris ([email protected])