Nearly everyone who writes likes - and needs - to talk about his or her writing, preferably to someone who will really listen, who knows how to listen, and knows how to talk about writing too. Maybe in a perfect world, all writers would have their own ready auditor - a teacher, a classmate, a roommate, an editor -  who would not only listen but draw them out, ask them questions they would not think to ask themselves. A writing center is an institutional response to this need. Clearly writing centers can never hope to satisfy this need themselves; on my campus alone the student-to-tutor ratio would be a thousand to one. Writing centers are simply one manifestation - polished and highly visible - of a dialogue about writing that is central to higher education.

(Stephen North, The Idea of a Writing Center)