Because of open admissions policies at the college level, college English teachers are faced with increasing numbers of students whose writing skills are well below desired standards. This journal, addressed to the concerns of teachers who want to help such students, attempts in this issue to point out ways in which English teachers can examine students' writing errors fruitfully. Separate articles discuss the following topics: controversies surrounding the teaching of standard written English to dialect-speaking students; writing problems which stem from dialect interference; classification of student writing errors and strategies for helping students acquire the skills needed to eliminate such errors; attacking errors indirectly through helping students to learn correct sentence structure; Chinese language interference in written English; Spanish language influences on written English; and getting away from a fixation on error in order to get on to the business of writing. (GW)