Carino uses the terms diachronic and synchronic to describe his two approaches to the history.
[If you are unfamiliar with this terms, a primer: Diachronic is a "typical" approach to history--looking at how things change over time. A synchronic approach, on the other hand, requires one to look deeply at one moment in time and all of the systems at play--think a new historic approach, a contextual approach.]
However, I think Carino doesn't do this in the second part of his essay. It's not clear, to me at least, what moment he is looking at. Instead, he seems to want to make the argument that some of this issues are pervasive through the decades by comparing all labs before the 1960s to WCs today--which still doesn't give the "accurate picture" he is aiming for. Your thoughts? Am I being too picky?
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The moment in time he seems to be looking at is the "now" of 1995, but he doesn't put it into context, so maybe he's not really providing a synchronic history but rather taking a few key issues of Writing Centers and trying to make connections between now and the various "thens." It's not clear that practices of the past were actually passed down through the years, so his efforts end up being comparisons rather than connections.
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