Geomorphology Final Paper Edits

Edits for: Group 1

Landslides along the Winooski River in Burlington, Vermont: Landscape change and slope instability

Shayla Triantafillou, Anne Morrison, Emily Mischler, Jason Drebber

Department of Geology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA

Group 1, I think that your paper is very well put together with the structure and figure layout. There are areas in the paper that I have marked in a pdf where I think you could add or omit certain phrases or sentences to make the paragraphs flow better. I think that your figure 2 could be adapted a little bit in order to fit the purposes you use it for. You reference the figure in your Landslide controls section as a figure containing equations when it is a diagram. It would be beneficial to add the equation or equations onto that diagram or on the side of the diagram where they can be referenced instead of having to go to the appendixes every time they are referenced. I think that you did an excellent job of answering all the questions that were posted for this paper in a manner that is very well organized. In your abstract, you mention climate change which I was a little confused about because there is no mention in the paper about climate change impacts. I think you could just take out the sentence and it would work much better, or talk about how climate change will impact riverside avenue landslides.

Edits for: Group 2

Human Activity as the Primary Indicator of Increased Frequency and Spatial Distribution of Landslides on

Riverside Avenue in Burlington, Vermont, 1928 - 2019.

Hehlen, Mark. Long, Grant. Robinson, Emma. Silvia, Kate.

Fall 2020 Geomorphology University of Vermont

Group 2, The paper is good for a first draft. There need to be formatting changes in order to make the paper flow smoother and make the reader do less work in navigating it. With the word count exceeding the maximum there are areas that are highlighted in the pdf edits that have been addressed where sections can be omitted. The layout of the figures should be fixed. At the moment they look like they are all just placed in the paper without thought or care. They should not hinder the reader from the flow of the paper, they should add to it. The section of the calculations and equations of the slope stability could be put into an appendix saving the paper a couple of hundred words. In the timeline section, there are areas that could be omitted because they are not necessary for solidifying the argument of human-induced impacts. Some areas of the paper should be reworded in order to provide an easier read for the reader. I think there could be a better examination of the role of surface and groundwater hydrology in the paper. It seemed the answer to that question was lacking.

Edits for: Group 3

Riverside Avenue Landslides

Harrison Hurwitz, Leah Sutphen, Remy Farrell, Ryan Mistur

Group 3, I think that you could be more creative with the title of your paper. It is a little bland at the moment. Make it creative, have fun with it. I would think about reformatting your paper making it more look more like a scientific paper rather than addressing each question separately. Make sure that when you reference figures that you number them in the order they come up in the paper, not how you made them at the end. The paper is in a pure draft state at this point. I think that the most beneficial thing to do would be to make it seem like a paper instead of answering questions like the quizzes we take. Connect each question and make it flow. I also recommend that you integrate the figures into the paper instead of having them at the end. With the excess amount of words that you use I think that once the paper is restructured there will be some overlap of ideas which can be trimmed, allowing you to meet the word count maximum. I think you could also reference some of the different areas of information that you use in your paper because not all of the data collected was done by us in lab. There are numerous papers we used throughout the semester where information is readily available. Just make sure to reference any information that is not yours.

Edits for: Group 4

Analyzing the Extensive Landslide History of Riverside Avenue

By Skylar Alger, Liviya Kovacevic, Ryan Sauer, & Elijah Schreiber

Group 4, your paper is very well done for a first draft. I recommend going back through and finding things that are not your information and citing them in the text. I like that your focus on the paper is the landslide history of Riverside Avenue, and you tie every question into that history. I think that your conclusion could be more in depth talking a little bit more on each topic and how all of the factors influenced the extensive landslide history of Riverside Avenue. I would think about maybe reformatting the first paper because right now it looks like a lot of compact information with the headings abstract, introduction and discussion all on one page.

Edits for: Group 5

Adam Gellman, Freddy Larsen, Reshma Rampersaud and Brenda Waters

Geomorphology and Landslides Along Riverside Avenue

Group 5, I would recommend looking at different APA papers to see the way that the title and names are written in format. Right now the names and information are looking like that of an MLA style paper. There are some areas where word choice or phrases could be changed to make the paper read smoother. There are some areas in the paper where you could check to see if information was taken from a source, and it so make sure to reference it in the paper. In your spatial distribution paragraph you begin with the phrase, “To the first engineers constructing riverside avenue…” This phrase, in my opinion could be rewritten in order to make the sentence and beginning of an argument stronger. Throughout the whole paper I think there could be a better single group voice that has the potential to be strengthened in order to make it seem as if one writer wrote the paper.

Edits for: Group 6

Strategies for Mitigating Landslides: A Case Study on Riverside Ave Burlington, Vermont

Luc Burnier, Julia Bailey-Wells, Ben Gaucherin, Derek Marquis

Group 6, I think that it would be beneficial to reformat the names and information for the paper into the APA style formatting. I recommend looking at different APA papers in order to get a sense of what this looks like. First off I think the most beneficial thing to do would be to go through your paper and look to see if there are areas where you repeat yourself or use information that is not necessary in the paper to reduce word count. You may want to change the title of your paper to something more inclusive of the questions that Paul posed. The paper is not completely about the mitigation strategies for Riverside Avenue, there are only two paragraphs in the whole paper that talk about mitigation strategies. I think that you have a couple of key areas where you can reduce the amount of words that are used in the paper, see the pdf comments.