One of the first challenges we encountered in developing the MENA Writing Center Census was deceptively simple: What is a tutor, and how do we name this role across languages? Writing center scholarship has long debated the terminology used to describe both tutors and the writers they work with, reflecting broader questions about authority, collaboration, and pedagogy. These debates became especially significant in a multilingual context.
In Arabic, tutor directly translates into مدرس, but this Arabic equivalent signifies teacher, introducing a shift in meaning, emphasizing authority and instruction rather than the peer-based, collaborative ethos often associated with writing center work. We could use مرشد (“guide”) as an equivalent, but this term overlaps with other roles, such as advisor or consultant. So we needed a different equivalent that would consolidate the translation.
The English terms advisor and consultant both translate into مستشار. While advisor, consultant, and tutor have similar but distinct meanings in English, in the Arabic version of the census we consolidate those roles under the single term مستشار, rather than attempting to preserve distinctions that did not meaningfully carry over into Arabic. For instance, when we asked about the title of the person that offers the consultations, we replaced the two terms in English (tutor or consultant) with one option in Arabic.
A comparable issue arose with the term client. The closest Arabic equivalent زبون is mostly used for buying and selling items, making it inappropriate for describing writing center users. We could not use the Arabic equivalent of student because that term does not cover all the possible “clients” of a center – students, faculty, or staff. To address this, we adopted the phrase مرتادي المركز “those who visit or frequent the center,” which more accurately reflects the range of possible users without imposing restrictive assumptions.
These decisions illustrate that importing the writing center model into the MENA region is not simply a matter of locating equivalent words; it requires careful consideration of how roles and relationships are conceptualized in different linguistic and cultural contexts.
Institutions, Language, and Survey Design
Translation challenges extended beyond tutoring roles to the institutional terminology embedded in the survey. Academic administrative structures vary significantly across regions, and some terms commonly used in English-language surveys do not have clear equivalents in Arabic or in MENA institutional contexts.
For example, the role of “provost” is specific to certain higher education systems, particularly in the United States. Many institutions in the MENA region do not have a directly comparable position. In translating this term, we used an Arabic equivalent corresponding to “vice president,” which approximates a senior administrative role but does not fully capture the same institutional function. For writing center practitioners in the region, these terms matter when trying to situate the writing center within the ecosystem of the institution. Should the center director report to the head of the English or Arabic department? What changes when a director reports to a more centralized administrative figure?
More broadly, the translation process prompted us to reconsider the assumptions embedded in our survey design. Categories that seemed straightforward in English often required reinterpretation or adaptation in Arabic. As a result, we included an explanatory note in the survey introduction clarifying that writing centers may use a range of terms—such as tutor, advisor, consultant, or even teacher—to describe similar roles. For the sake of consistency in the survey questions, we used “tutor” in the English version and مستشار in the Arabic version throughout the instrument.
These choices also intersected with the practical constraints of the digital survey platform. In cases where multiple English options corresponded to a single Arabic term, we were forced to adjust the response structure in the survey platform itself. When two words in English meant the same in Arabic, one option in Arabic was replaced with “this option is only available in English.” Taken together, these challenges demonstrate how digital design, institutional variation, and linguistic structure intersect in the construction of research instruments.
Language in Writing Center Practice
Beyond terminology and institutional structure, language also plays a central role in what happens inside writing center consultations. Since multiple languages are commonly used by individuals in the MENA region, our survey asked what languages tutors use to communicate during consultations. We wanted to know if there were language policies that required tutors to only use English only for English assignments or Arabic only for Arabic assignments, or if use of multiple languages is encouraged during consultations, such as code-switching between Arabic and English during a discussion of an English assignment.
This approach aligns with existing scholarship on writing centers in the region. In “Theory In/To Practice: Multilingual Tutors Supporting Multilingual Peers: A Peer-Tutor Training Course in the Arabian Gulf”, Ronesi (2009) highlights how the linguistic and cultural diversity of students in the Gulf region fundamentally shapes writing center practice.
Rather than treating multilingualism as a challenge to be overcome, Ronesi positions it as a defining feature of the writing center environment. In this context, tutors are not simply supporting writers working in a second language; they are themselves multilingual participants navigating complex linguistic and cultural dynamics. Effective tutor training, therefore, requires rethinking core assumptions about peer interaction, authority, and communication.
Such rethinking is provided for in the framework of peer tutoring scholarship, which as Ronesi notes, “is obviously and understandably US-centric, it is also student-oriented and practical.” In her peer tutoring course, tutor trainees draw upon their lived experiences to question and navigate Western academic writing norms (such as discourses around plagiarism), as well as observe the distinctions between actual tutoring sessions conducted at their institution and those described in the literature. Finally, tutor trainees conduct a research project, often unique to their regional context. These interventions designed into her course demonstrate how tutor training programs must be adapted to reflect local linguistic diversity, institutional structures, and cultural expectations.
These insights have important implications for the design of the MENA Writing Center Census. If writing center practices differ across linguistic contexts, then survey categories must be flexible enough to capture that variation. By accounting for these dynamics, the MENA Writing Center Census aims to produce data that more accurately reflects the realities of writing center work in the region.