The Psychological Disadvantages of Drop-in Online Consultations
By: Bonnie Devet, College of Charleston
Mollie Bowman, Pennsylvania State University
Alex Tate-Moffo, College of Charleston
The above reading details several disadvantages associated with using Zoom as writing Mentors to conduct asynchronous writing mentorship sessions.
“When working in person, consultants employ silence, waiting for students to process a question and apply it to their writings. Online, however, consultants’ silences might appear as if consultants are uninterested or detached.” This happens because of a lack of non-verbal communication.
“The physical screen itself also created isolation. A consultant reported, “I never had too much of a hard time connecting with my clients when we were face-to-face, but connecting with people through a screen is much harder.”
This is because Body language, facial expressions and even the way someone breathes can provide information about this individual which plays a bigger part in the rapport building process than we realize. Failing to build rapport repeatedly like this, can lead to a sense of isolation.
“Isolation was not the only potential complication. Emotional fatigue, a key component of burnout, also arose.” Emotional fatigue comes about in any service-related job, but especially in writing centers because of the personal nature of writing that some writers rely upon and the isolating nature of the medium used to communicate.
References:
- Devet, B., Bowman, M., & Tate-Moffo, A. (2024). The psychological disadvantages of drop-in online consultations. WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, 48(3). https://doi.org/10.37514/WLN-J.2024.48.3.04
Centering the Emotional Labor of Writing Tutors
Author(s): Bethany Mannon
Published by: International Writing Centers Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/27172217
Before reading this article, I didn’t realize “emotional labor” was a formal sociological concept. Mannon explains that writing consultants routinely perform emotional labor, which is the act of consciously managing their emotions to create a welcoming environment and build confidence in writers. Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild defines emotional labor as inducing or suppressing feelings “to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others.” That stuck with me. It made me see how feedback isn’t just about content or grammar, it’s also about gauging how a comment might land emotionally. That might seem manipulative, but in practice, it’s a way of protecting and uplifting students so they don’t shut down in response to critique
References:
- The Writing Center Journal, 2021, Vol. 39, No. 1/2, 40th Anniversary Special Double Issue (2021), pp. 143-168
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