an ongoing discussion of the theory and practice of basic writing

CBW-L is a listserv focused on basic writing and related issues. We welcome anyone who wishes to participate in an ongoing discussion of basic writing as it is studied and practiced in its historically rich and varied contexts.

To subscribe to this listserv, send an e-mail message to: listserv@umn.edu. The content of the message should read subscribe CBW-L firstname lastname. For example, write subscribe cbw-l jane doe. You should leave the subject line blank and remove your signature for this message.

In response, you will receive e-mail confirmation of your subscription and instructions for sending future mail.

To access CBW-L archives, you will need to use your e-mail program to request a specific transcript. To begin, you need to get the "index" of available archives. These are compiled by month, with the current month updated daily (log9606, for instance, is June 1996).

To receive a complete index CBW-L messages, send a message to listserv@umn.edu. Leave the subject line blank, do not append a signature, and in the message window type INDEX CBW-L. In a second or two (really fast), you'll receive an index the available CBW-L archives.

Once you've determined which archives you're interested in, send a message to listserv asking for the month of archived messages you want to receive. Again, address this to listserv@umn.edu, leaving the subject line blank and deleting your signature. In the message window write GET CBW-L LOGXXXX where xxxx specifies the month (for example, GET CBW-L LOG9606 to retrieve June 96).

In a few seconds, the University of Minnesota server will send the messages you've requested to your e-mail address. Since most of these monthly indexes are too large to display in an e-mail program, you'll want to save these archived messages to your word processing program and peruse them from there.

NOTE Being able to access the archives is especially useful if you signoff for a vacation, are a new member who wants to trace things back, or if you want to revisit a specific thread of the CBW-L conversation.

To sign off from this listserv, send "SIGNOFF CBW-L" command to listserv@umn.edu

More information on LISTSERV commands can be found in the LISTSERV reference card, which you can retrieve by sending an "INFO REFCARD" command to listserv@umn.edu

CBW-L@vm1.spcs.umn.edu is an unmoderated e-mail list originated by the Conference on Basic Writing and hosted by the General College of the University of Minnesota.