E-mail and Writing

This project was conducted to determine the effects of e-mail, used in class assignments, on student writing. Essays from two English 20 classes, one using e- mail and one not using e-mail, were examined at intervals over the course of one semester and graded holistically to determine improvement in student writing. These essays were also graded by computer to objectively measure writing improvement using the Grammatik program. Surveys were administered to the two classes at the beginning and end of the semester to gauge the students\u27 confidence with and interest in writing. These same surveys were also administered to an upper-level, writing-intensive economics class at the beginning and end of the semester. Results showed that students\u27 writing improved markedly over the course of the semester in the class using e-mail compared to the class not using e-mail. The students using e-mail were also more confident in their ability to write at the end of the semester than the students who did not use e-mail