Chapter 6 of Writing Online provides an overview of email discussion lists, including instructions for joining and leaving lists, tips on handling list volume, and other matters. The Crosslinks for this chapter offer links to help sheets for different email list software, email list search engines, further advice on using email lists, and articles and research on email list dynamics.

• Listserv Manual is the complete user manual from L-Soft, makers of Listserv. Your best bet is to go right to Chapter 2: Getting Started.  
• Majordomo offers an overview of Majordomo list software, which has the advantage of being easy to install and use. The primary Majordomo can be found under the heading Majordomo Email Interface.  
• Listproc is maintained by CREN, the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking. If you go to their documentation page, you can find a User's Manual in either PostScript or rich text format that's available for downloading.  

• Liszt List of Email Lists allows you to search over 90,000 email lists as of 9/18/00. Search by keyword or category.  
• Catalist: Listserv List Catalog offers a database of over 41,000 public listserv lists as of 10/1/00. 
• EGroups.com, formerly Find Mail, lets you do two things—look for email groups to join (among 300,000 hosted) or create a group of your own. This is a good service if it is hard to get an email discussion list on your campus or from your Internet service provider (ISP). 
• Tile.Net Lists is simply one of the best places to start. Most lists listed are submitted by list owners; the database is large and covers lists for Listproc, Majordomo, Listserv, and Lyris. You can also search Usenet newsgroups, FTP sites, product vendors, and the Internet. For an example of what you'll find, see the results you get when you use the word writing as a list search term. 
• Directory of Scholarly and Professional E-Conferences, maintained by Diane Kovacs and her team, is the best source for finding "discussion lists, newsgroups, MUDs, MOOs, MUCKs, MUSHs, mailing lists, interactive web chat groups etc. (e-conferences) on topics of interest to scholars and professionals for use in their scholarly, pedagological, and professional activities."  
• MetaList offers a place to search among over 235,500 lists as of 10/1/00. What's unique is that you can search lists by a specific language, which is a great resource for those of you who might be planning junior years abroad or who want practice writing colloquially in a second or third language. 
• Intercultural Email Classroom Connections is a free service that helps teachers find international classroom connections for their students. If your writing class is focusing on a global issue as a theme or part of the course content, this site can help you contact people who may share your interests. 

• All Hail the Lurkers by David Weinberger stresses the importance of lurking (joining a group and reading/listening to its members for a while) before jumping into an ongoing discussion. Weinberger writes a regular Buzz Soup column for Intranet Design Magazine.
• Email List Overview, written by L-Soft, the makers of Listserv email list software, provides a good, quick overview of email lists with suggestions on different ways to use them. See also L-Soft's advice on spamming and dealing with spam. (Select the "facts and information about spam" link from the drop-down list at the top of the page.)  
• Overview: Electronic Mail comes from the Writing Center at Colorado State University and provides a classroom-ready overview of email. 
• A Neophyte's Guide to Effective Email is a good compilation of advice by Phillip Elam, writing for WebNovice.com, a site devoted to helping people who are new to the WWW.  

• Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Email as Instructional Aid is a conference presentation by Gongli Xu from The University of British Columbia. This paper was presented at the 1996 Teaching in Community College Online Conference, a yearly conference for community college teachers that is held entirely online. This year's conference took place on April 12–14, 2000.  
• You've Got Email, But Can You Make It Really Deliver? is an Education World article by Judi Harris, Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Texas at Austin. Harris offers sound advice and ten useful tips on using email lists in teaching. 
• Teledemocracy vs. Deliberative Democracy: A Comparative Look at Two Models of Public Talk, is a 1995 essay by Scott London. After reading it, you might want to join discussion lists that focus on politics, current events, or public issues. Which of Scott's models do you see on those lists?  
• Responsibility as an Issue in Internet Communication is an article in the Journal of Technology Law and Policy by James Inman and Ralph Inman that looks at whether flaming could meet the legal definition of defamation. 
• In Gender Differences in Computer-Mediated Communication: Bringing Familiar Baggage to the New Frontier, linguist Susan Herring argues that women and men have different conversational styles and ethics when participating in online discussions.  
• Woman Online: Cultural and Relational Aspects of Women's Communication in Online Discussion Groups, a 1996 research study by Sharmila Pixy Ferris, examined whether online disucssions would reduce some of the differences in how men and women communicate, thus helping women to participate in discussions more fully.  
• Virtual Communities, Phony Civil Society? by Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community, challenges the conclusions of a report that found online communities (often shaped by email and Usenet groups) are really communities.