There are writing centers on almost every college and university in the United States, and there is an emerging body of professional discourse, research, and writing about them. The goal of this book is to open, to formalize, and to further the dialogue about research in and about writing centers. The original essays in this volume, all written by writing center researchers, directly address current concerns about writing center research in several ways: they encourage systematic writing center research by offering detailed, reflective accounts of research; they further diversity of approach by demonstrating a range of methodologies (e.g., ethnography, longitudinal case study; rhetorical analysis, teacher research) available to both veteran and novice writing center professionals; they advance an ongoing conversation about writing center research. The book aims to encourage and guide other researchers, while at the same time offering new knowledge that has resulted from the studies it reports.