Advice for writing papers in Lees’ class:

1) This is scientific writing, not fiction or poetry. Be Clear! Clarity is the most highly praised attribute in scientific writing. (Actually this is also true of good poetry and fiction.)

2) Avoid long, overly complicated sentences. This is a major shortcoming in most student papers. Break up your ideas into small bites and string them together in a logical way that builds your arguments or points. Each paragraph should contain one main idea.

3) Don’t fill in with pulp. This is very transparent and a waste of your time (and mine). Sometimes it is useful to write a whole bunch of stuff onto the page, but later you had better clean out the nonsense. Keep only what is relevant to the subject matter on hand. It is better to be short, concise and to the point than long winded and rambling.

4) Make an outline: look over your logical progression through the paper: background – new evidence – analysis – discussion – conclusion. Can you convince someone off the street with your argument? Could you explain your thesis to your (non-technical) family members or roommates? Your conclusions should be concise and to the point. Do not conclude things you are not sure of, leave those speculations for the discussion section.

5) Provide figures or any other visual aid which illustrates a point. Be easy on the readers – they are trying to figure out your brilliant ideas. An illustration is usually helpful if it clarifies some important relationship. Always add figure captions. Always label axes and units. You may XEROX figures from other journal articles, but be sure to add an appropriate reference: e.g. “…from Irving et al. (1953)”, or if you modify some else’s figure “…after Irving et al. (1953)…”

6) Avoid JARGON, it will be apparent to the reader if you do not know what you are talking about. Put things in your own terms if necessary. Define any technical terms you think may be misconstrued.

7) Avoid direct quotes. These can usually be found in other references so let the reader find them and them in the original. On the other hand, you can always paraphrase another source. This is especially good if you can clarify some obscure point presented by another author.

8) NEVER plagiarize. Do not use someone else’s material, figures, ideas, or whatever, without careful documentation and attribution. All references should be in the same style and collected in the rear of the paper. (I would avoid English Lit style footnotes). Choose a particular style, like that used in Journal of Geophysical Research or Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, or other, and stick with it.
Examples:
Lees, J. M., 1992, The magma system of Mount St. Helens: Non-linear high resolution P-wave tomography: Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, v. 53, no. 1-4, p. 103-116.

Vergniolle, S., 1997, Listening to Pele: Science, v. 275, no. 5304, p. 1278-1279.

Bruce, V., 2001, No apparent danger : the true story of volcanic disaster at Galeras and Nevado Del Ruiz: New York, HarperCollins, 239 p.

9) Number your pages, equations, figures, tables. Put your name on each page. Make a copy of the paper for yourself incase the instructor loses the original.

10) Use correct spelling. Use the spell checker on your word processor. There is NO excuse now for spelling mistakes. Some spell checkers will miss certain kinds of errors, better read your paper to catch these: Speling misstakes whil knot bee tollarated.

11) Use good grammar and good sentence structure. If you are weak in this, get a friend who is good at English to read your draft. You will be downgraded if you submit substandard English.