Final Paper Reviews

Reviews of Riverside Avenue Landslide History Group Papers

Group 1 – Emily Mischler, Jason Drebber, Anne Morrison, Shayla Triantafillou

This paper argued that a combination of human activity, the slope stability, increased amount of impervious surfaces and hydrology, and glacial history all influenced the landslides that occurred on Riverside Ave. Additionally, heavier precipitation events appeared to be the cause for many of these events. The increased amount of heavy precipitation resulting from climate change combined with increased anthropogenic activity may result in a higer frequency of landslides in the future. The paper was well written, however it may benefit them to read through it again and make sure that each sentence in a given paragraph is important and fits in. For example, mentioning the glacial history or hydrology at the beginning of a paragraph is not necessary if those topics are not touched on later on in the paragraph. The paper was a bit long as well, and eliminating some repetitive ideas may help with that. I also thought that the figures in the paper were very thoughtful and complimented the writing well. Clearly, a lot of effort was put into making them and placing them where they were. Overall, this paper has a great start to it and will improve with a few more minor edits.

Group 2 – Mark Hehlen, Kat Silvia, Grant Long, Emma Robinson

This paper was well written and had a nice flow to it. They argued that the landslide history is largely due to anthropogenic interference combined with the already weakened area. The figures were appropriate and fit in well throughout the whole paper. However, the paper was longer than the length requirement and will need to be edited to an appropriate length. While reading it, I also felt as if the individual landslides were not as important as the nature of the science itself. Perhaps taking out a few details of the individual landslide occurrences will help with the word count. Also, they may not need to go into as much detail for some sections, including where they discuss the use of the infinite slope model. For a paper with a word count of only 1000-1200 words, there isn't always enough space to go very in depth. I had also found that the conclusion restated some information that didn't seem necessary to repeat. One final suggestion for them would be to read through the paper and fix grammatical errors including commas. Given those suggestions, they should be able to decrease the word count by a few hundred words and improve the overall quality of their paper. But again, this group has a very good start and the paper is presented and written very nicely! I liked how they split up the different sections (abstract/intro/background/discussion/etc), it made the paper feel very well organized.

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Group 3 – Ryan Mistur, Remy Farrell, Harrison Hurwitz, and Leah Sutphen

This paper has a great start, but needs some edits before a final draft is turned in. The argument was that human activity has increased the occurrence of landslides in the area, however underlying causes such as slope stability, hydrology, and glacial history have also played a major role into landslide occurrence. While reading this paper, I found several issues that I feel need to be worked on. To begin, the flow of the paper needs work, and I'm mostly referring to the fact that they used the different question headers as titles for each section. Sometimes it's good to pose questions to make the reader think, but in the case of a more formal paper it may be helpful to rework the titles a bit to make them more appropriate for the audience. Additionally, I found that lots of information was repeating, such as mentioning vegetation briefly in a few different paragraphs. It may be more helpful to have a better flow between paragraphs and incorporate everyone's information in these paragraphs. Along with that idea, they do not necessarily have to write the paper in the order that the questions were listed. It would benefit them and the reader if they were displayed in a more logical order which may also help it flow better. Next, they listed all of their figures at the bottom instead of throughout the paper. The first figure mentioned was Figure 4, so they should also mention 1-3 first. Most of the other issues were minor, such as sentence structure which I highlighted in a few places. The paper has a good start overall, but may require some group coordination to improve.

Group 5 – Brenda Waters, Adam Gellman, Freddy Larsen and Reshma Rampersaud

This paper has a great start. The group argued that the glacial history of Vermont influenced the landscape to become what it is today, which in turn influenced the presence of landslides. Human activity, more specifically the construction of the road and addition of fill, influenced the frequency of landslides. This was also impacted by the hydrology of the area, the presence of vegetation, and the materials that compose the slope. One suggestion I might make to them would be to finalize the order that they want the paragraphs to be in. For example, when I was reading the pargraph about whether the landslides are natural or anthropogenic, I felt that it would be better earlier on in the paper because they discuss some of the reasoning behind the causes. This way, they may be able to go more in depth in later sections. Also, in other areas of the paper, they gave details that are less important for their argument, especially for such a short paper. For example, when the glacial retreat occurred is not super important, and perhaps condensing some of that section would help them elaborate more on something else. It wouldn't hurt for them to add more at the end or rework the last paragraph a bit in order to make it sound more like a conclusion. With the last sentence especially, it makes the reader feel as if there should be a few more sentences to wrap everything up. I also found there to be several minor issues relating to the sentence structure or grammar which can be easily fixed. With the errors aside, the paper was presented very thoughtfully and with a few edits it will be further improved.

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Group 6 – Ben Gaucherin, Julia Bailey-Wells, Derek Marquis, and Luc Burnier

This group had a good start to their paper. They argued that landslides may become more common, especially on the already weak slope of Riverside Ave, due to climate change. The increased amount of human activity is als quite influential in determining the spatial distribution of the landslides, and this is combined with other factors such as hydrology and glacial history. Finally, they discussed a few ways to potentially reduce the number of landslides in an area. The structure of the paper was good overall, however the word count is very high and they'll have to choose which parts to remove. It may be helpful for them to remove part of the section about mitigating future landslides, because I feel like the causes of these landslides are more important than how to mitigate them, at least in this paper. Other issues that I found were pretty minor, including different tenses used throughout paragraphs or sentences, or just unnecessary words within each sentence that can be removed. Additionally, I had found several sentences that could be combined with other sentences, which would also help decrease the word count. However, the content in the papers was great, and will be improved with a few small edits here and there.

See edits below