[Claud]

Speaking of efficiency, another fun composition exercise (fun for the instructor :-) is to tell the student to reduce the length of the composition by half, without leaving out any content!

That's an excellent idea. Most people (myself included) get caught up in putting tons of words on the page instead of being concise.

[Tax-chick]

I learned this trick from a composition teacher in high school. Almost anything can be cut by a third, if not by half.