Chinese students coming to the United States face many barriers in terms of writing style, sentence structure, and language customs, yet they also are beginning to develop many similarities in both their culture and their writing to Western students. Because Chinese ESL students are beginning to increase in number, it is important for writing centers to recognize this and adapt strategies to react accordingly. Much controversy exists on just how much of an allowance professors and tutors should make for cultural differences, but research is unanimous in saying that tutors should adapt their styles to people of different cultures (Szpara). In dealing with Chinese students, writing centers have had mixed results in the past – research done by Williams suggests that much of the work done between Writing Center (WC) tutors and Chinese students does not make it to the final draft. In dealing with Chinese students, Williams asserts, tutors may be better served to provide information to writers rather than elicit it (Williams). Future research on ideas like these needs to be done regarding how WC tutors might better assist Chinese students in their academic writing.
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