Length is one indicator of competence in a freshman writer's text. Simply producing a lot of text gives the writer more confidence in his ability "to write." Most students enjoy writing in electronic environments, and online discussion or the production of Web pages can function as a kind of freewriting in a social context. Because thoroughness of discussion is a marker of academic literacy, the ability to produce a large quantity of text shows the student's awareness of the conventions of the discourse community he is attempting to join. An additional benefit is that some errors in production are outgrown when the student feels invested in the writing and ca eliminate errors without giving a great deal of conscious attention to them.