Having scrapped the marking code a while ago, I recently took it one step further with the aim of saving me time and making them do the work in order to help them think about their own writing and develop real-life editing skills. Now I just underline a third of all clauses in their written work at random without even reading it, asking them to correct or improve the bits I have underlined. In the unlikely event that they ask me questions about something I’ve underlined that has nothing wrong with it, I tell them that I wanted them to be more ambitious with their language use there and give them a highfalutin version of that clause to put in its place in the even more unlikely event they can’t come up with an alternative themselves.

If they catch mistakes that I’ve missed, I simpy tell them that it isn’t considered good to concentrate only on errors.

Any other similar time saving tips, anyone?