This article reports on the effectiveness of electronic mail (e-mail) in assisting learners of English to develop their writing abilities. E-mail provides a number of facilities, which can help students of the Indonesia Open University (Universitas Terbuka/UT) improve their abilities as well as raising their confidence in writing English composition. Writing in itself is often considered as a process in a sense that it involves four main stages i.e. pre-writing, drafting, revising and editing. These four main steps seem to be applicable for paper-based writing as well as for e-mail. As far as distance-learning is concerned, these two aspects can be integrated into electronic-based tutorials, as opposed to face-to-face ones. Although there are some constraints, both from UT's and student's points of view, the advantages of electronic tutorial using e-mail still outweigh their disadvantages.