Paper Reviews

Group 2: (214 words) Sentence structure and wording at times sounds awkward and could use some polishing. Paper content was accurate and informative. Figures and figure captions need to be larger in order to improve readability. One major flaw in this paper is the lack of in-text citations, which can be easily rectified before the final draft. I think you have the best title out of all the drafts so far! Your abstract is a little short and there's definitely room to add a little more detail in terms of what your paper examines. Figure 1 is a little overwhelming but has a lot of good content. Maybe you could expand the figure or display the information in a slightly different manner. I like that you put your glacial history in the background section; it provides good context for your discussion of current landslides. I like figure 4, but I think it might look more professional if the images were displayed all on one line. I also really like the way you presented the 2019 slide as a case study and discussed the mechanics of landslides in relation to this recent event. Figure 7 could be really interesting if you zoom in to the spatial extent of the drone imagery so it's more visible in the map pane.

Group 3: (203 words) I liked how each of your sections answered one of the assignment questions, but there was definitely information repeated in multiple sections. Your paper was over length by quite a bit, so eliminating these repetitions will definitely help! Most of your topic sentences could be strengthened to provide a better sense of what each section or paragraph will be about. Because of the way your paper is structured, you might consider trying to answer each question in one sentence and using that as your topic sentence to expound on in the rest of each section. There are also a few spots where two sentences back to back seem to be repeating themselves. This may be the product of having multiple authors and multiple voices in your writing. A quick edit will probably solve many of these issues. I also noticed that much of your "Are they natural?" section discusses anthropogenic causes of landslides. Perhaps you could combine the natural and human causes sections or move some content around to better fit this section title. In your final draft, make sure to cite more sources in the text of your paper and move your figures to their proper sections. Your timeline figure is fantastic!

Group 4: (202 words) I really like your title page set-up. Your paper was concise and under the word limit, so great job on that! I think changing the organizational structure or at least adding a few subheadings might help strengthen your paper. There are a few places where information is repeated and could be cut, and other sections that you could definitely expand on. Including more specific sections in your paper may help identify which sections need more information and which need less. You have plenty of figures, but not all of them are referenced in the text of the paper. Lots of your figures are images from the landslide site, which is informative and useful, but I think your paper would benefit from the inclusion of other data-driven figures. I think you could call figures 6 and 7 the same figure and combine both of the captions, since the images are side-by-side. This combo figure would also look better if you added a north arrow and scale bar. The section about Vermont's glacial history feels a little out of place down at the end as your penultimate paragraph. This content might be a better fit for the introduction or the beginning of the discussion.

Group 5: (200 words) This draft of your paper is a solid start. Including a separate page for the title and abstract might help the paper look more professional. Figures should be centered on the page with appropriate captions. Source links for each figure would look better in your references, rather than figure captions. I like your Glacial Lake Vermont figure a lot! I think you're the only group that has a glacial history figure. Some parts of your discussion could be reworded for clarity - there's one part under the landslide triggers that I noted below that really confused me. I thought your surface and groundwater hydrology section could benefit from further discussion of the impacts of impervious surfaces. There isn't much context for some of your measurements in the spatial distribution section. I thought it might be interesting to include some sort of figure here. Like group 6, I think your paper would benefit from further discussion of your chosen mitigation strategy and fewer words spared for unfeasible options. I liked that you included specific monetary incentives and potential solutions to make your ideas feasible. In your final draft, make sure to include in-text citations and cite your references in a standard format.

Group 6: (210 words) The abstract of this paper sounds more like an introduction than an abstract. It might be helpful to focus on summarizing the contents of your paper and save the background information for your introduction. Revision for word choice will help improve the quality of the paper. The paper is much longer than the maximum for this assignment and there are definitely sections that can be cut down to better fit the required length. There are several places that would benefit from including more in-text citations to strengthen your arguments. I especially liked Figure 1, with the 1872 map laid over a hillshade. There are plenty of figures in the paper, but not all of them are referenced in the text. Your future mitigation section is very long but has a lot of good ideas. It might help if you explain your proposed mitigation plan in more depth and spend less time talking about the unfeasible options. The conclusion introduces some new information, which while interesting, might be a better fit for elsewhere in your paper. Including separate pages for your title and abstract and references will help your paper look more professional. This draft is a good start that can be improved by rewording your arguments and cutting extraneous information.