The first writing centers were founded in the US in the 1930s under the name of 'writing labs' or 'writing clinics', where the focus was on correcting the errors of freshmen students; however, the number of these labs increased in the 1940s, as they served to prepare officers for the Second World War (Carino, 1995). In the 1960s, as a result of open admissions, universities started to provide free writing assistance for low-income, underprepared students as well as athletes and veterans (Jolly, 1984).

Writing centers went through a significant change in the 1970s and 1980s, when universities began accepting more and more international students who would need help with their struggles in writing skills (Bouquet, 1999). In 1984, Stephen M. North wrote his ground-breaking article titled "The Idea of a Writing Center", where he proposed that "in a writing center the object is to make sure that writers, and not necessarily their texts, are what get changed by instruction... Our job is to produce better writers, not better writing" (p.438).

Today, with the influence of the US education system and initiatives, there are many writing centers around the world, which aim to help writers (both students and academics) to become more independent and confident and to develop their linguistic, rhetorical and stylistic skills. The mission of writing centers is even bigger now, "especially for international scholars seeking publications in high-ranked international journals" (Uysal & Selvi, 2021); therefore, more and more universities are opening writing centers and working towards maintaining their high quality all around the world.

Boquet, E. H. (1999). "Our little secret": A history of writing centers, pre-to post-open admissions. College Composition and Communication, 50(3), 463-482.

Carino, P. (1995). Early writing centers: Toward a history. The Writing Center Journal, 15(2), 103-115.

Jolly, P. (1984). "The bottom line: Financial responsibility." In Writing Centers: Theory and Administration, ed. Gary A. Olson, 101-114. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English.

North, S. M. (1984). The idea of a writing center. College English, 46 (5), 433-446.

Uysal, H. H. & Selvi, B. (2021). Writing Centers as A Solution to The Problems of International Scholars in Writing for Publication. International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET), 8(1). 288-309.