Research into writing anxiety is an off-shoot of research into oral communication anxiety. At first, researchers thought that people with high oral communication anxiety tended to compensate by writing. However, when the Daly-Miller Writing Apprehension Test was used, it was found that the link between oral and written anxiety did not exist. The usual definition of writing anxiety is "a general avoidance of writing and of situations perceived by the individual to potentially require some amount of writing accompanied by the potential for evaluation of that writing" (Daly and Miller, 1975). Estimates of the percentage of anxious writers in the population are approximately the same as for anxious speakers--about 10 to 25 percent. One of the most frequent clues that a person is suffering from writing anxiety is that writing tasks or assignments are late or non-existent. Recent research is leading to the conclusion that anxiety is not the real culprit behind poor writing but is only a component of a negative attitude about writing. Writing may be improved by a change in the perceptions of the teacher/evaluator about writing attitudes. One of the ways to counteract writing anxiety is to improve the skills of the writer. Writing skills improvement courses in schools and work settings should be taught in nontraditional ways and evaluation by teachers should be reduced, substituting peer or self-evaluation when possible. (KC)