Language teachers spend much of their time providing corrective feedback on students' writing in hope of helping them improve grammatical accuracy. Turning to research for guidance, however, can leave practitioners with few concrete answers as to the effectiveness of written corrective feedback (CF). Debate in the literature continues, reflecting dichotomies in language learning theory, inconsistent research methodology, and inherent challenges in designing controlled classroom research. As the debate evolves, few teachers are waiting for concrete empirical support and instead provide written CF based on intuition, experience, and student expectations. Second language and foreign language writing teachers, therefore, face the immediate challenges of assessing their students' abilities, needs, goals, and preferences with respect to written accuracy and then designing feedback to fit teaching contexts in ways that are manageable and useful. This article identifies factors that warrant consideration when teachers make decisions about the provision of written CF and highlight trends in research that provide practical insights for its design.