John maintains that email writing discussion groups are an excellent forum for students to critique each others' work and to present their own. He adds that many students who feel that they can't write an essay are often quite adept at writing email messages. These are really the foundations of all good writing. The job of the writing student is to become aware of these aspects of their writing and to learn how to control them. John helps students determine the strengths of their writing whether those strengths are found in academic papers or emails to friends and then capitalize on them, using them as a basis for improving all facets of their writing.
Most bad writing comes from bad teaching.