Showing Scott how to do something today, I noticed that his post-editing screen, when he was logged in, didn’t show the “Excerpt” box – something that would make writing the excerpts that show up in the “Recent Posts” and other areas impossible. If you don’t write them yourself, the blog will just make a selection of its own from the first words of your post.
Handling the problem turns out to be very simple: At the upper right of your screen when you’re in “Add New Post” or “Edit Post,” there’s a little gray box that says “Screen Options.” Click on it, and you’ll bring up a set of checkboxes, allowing you to pick and choose what the screen shows. Check “Excerpt” and the box ought to show:
Excerpt box highlighted - click for full-size version
You can also take the opportunity to switch off options that you never use, and therefore just clutter up your page.
Use this as a thread to ask any other questions about site functionality that you might have.
). Go to our 
okie-dokie.