I used to red pen my students (back before Big English Teachers’ Professional Organizations [BETPO] advised against red pens.  Too negative!  Use green!  If you must, you may use purple! Put a sticker on your students’ work to soften the blow that “j/k” doesn’t belong in a report about Three Cups of Tea.  Always recognize the effort!  Encourage quantity! Read/comment on almost all of it!) for three reasons:

1. Long parenthetical tangents.

2. Exclamation pointorrhea

3. Being too afraid to start a new piece of writing, and cowering behind a semi-apologetic, painfully self-aware pre-introduction before getting on with the business and pleasure of writing.

Hello, friend.  May I tell you some stories? I’ve been spending a lot of  some time on them.