If the in-basket assignment is to be the "real- world" training that we claim it to be, the entire in-basket environment must be not just assigned, but taught. In- basket items do not appear in a vacuum; they are part of office routine. Fur thermore, there is a method of determining priorities for the items that must be answered—a method based on deadlines, degrees of complexity and im portance, and even one's own working habits—while other items simply can be discarded, or noted and filed. Only when the background and method have been taught can we expect students to approach the actual exercise as a real- world in-basket instead of as discrete additional assignments.