Another day, another opportunity to brutalize students

It has been suggested (never mind by whom) that the comments I insert in students' papers can sound a little, um, unfriendly. Maybe even downright harsh. I have explained that my comments are intended to be helpful but I have to keep them concise or they'll fill the entire margin and spill out over the next page, but for students in the Emoticon Age, conciseness can feel like brutality.

I don't want to brutalize my students--well, most of them, anyway--but I don't know how to make brief and pithy suggestions about syntax sound celebratory:

A comma alone is not strong enough to connect two complete sentences; try a semicolon or a comma plus a conjunction--LOL!

Check spelling--I mean, if that kind of thing is important to you. :-)

This is a really interesting point! It's so interesting, in fact, that it was made by another author in an online summary of the text! So while I applaud your ability to pull together really interesting ideas, I'm going to have to give you a teensy-weensy little grade deduction (enjoy that F!) and report your academic dishonesty to the provost. Have a nice day!

This clearly isn't working. I always find something good to applaud in each paper, and I enjoy inserting celebratory remarks for a student who shows progress, but I can't avoid pointing out areas that need work and I can't figure out how to make those comments sound friendly, or at least less brutal.

Maybe we can all just put our emotions aside and read the comments as comments. Suspend emotions while reading papers! Is there an emoticon for that?