Yesterday, after meeting with a small group of students, I set myself up in an empty lounge with a cup of coffee and a stack of Materials and Methods sections from my students’ scientific reports.

Before digging in, I sent an e-mail to a friend, another writer who tutors and teaches at a college in Pennsylvania, and said, “I’m not working on my writing right now, but my iBook is open and I’m about to write some comments on student drafts, if that counts.”

He wrote back instantly: “It counts. Oh yeah, it counts.”