1. Structure and Syntax

• No section headings: no introduction, no conclusions, no discussion
• Sentence fragments
• Plural subjects with singular verbs and vice versa
• Pronouns with improper or unclear reference (lots of these):
• "...because land is warmer, it moves from the Pacific to the coast..."
• Paragraphs without topic sentence
• Paragraphs made up of randomly collected sentences
• (A good way of checking whether you have created a good paragraph or not is to read the first sentence, which should be the topic sentence. Then read the last sentence of the paragraph. If the last sentence does not relate directly to the first, the paragraph has poor structure.).
• One sentence paragraphs (by definition, a paragraph has a theme or topic sentence, with multiple explanatory sentences that follow. Usually, one sentence paragraphs indicate poor proof-reading on the part of the author...and these sentences usually can be combined with other sentences somewhere else to produce a good paragraph).
• Runon sentences
• Runon paragraphs

2. Editing

• Poor spelling
• affect/effect, its/it's
• Typos
• Contractions: never in formal scientific writing
• First person should be avoided
• Conversational tone should be avoided
• Avoid platitudes or truisms as a closing sentence
• directions ("...on the southwest side of the low...") not captialized
• formal geographic place names always capitalized
• ("...the low is found in the Southwest..."; "...Central Valley...")
  

3. Content

• Poor organization (seemed to be related to lack of section headings)
• Mixup of causes and effects
• Important connections skipped
• Lack of focus (outline and section headings would help)
• Paper does not address topic
• Inferences too broad
• Improper jargon (writing is NOT the same as speaking)
  

4. Following Format Instructions

• Not using figures required to be included (see above)
• Not referring to figures by number specifically in text in the order that they appeared
• Not having sections headings
• Not having the right title (which usually meant you ended up off-topic)
• Totally improper referencing procedure.
  (Note: plagiarism is a significant problem, not only in the university, but in the society at large. Because of this, I was very rigorous in grading for referencing errors and in-text citations. Not including the proper references in the bibiliography is a significant source of error in indicating the ownership of ideas. Therefore, if you did not follow the very clear instructions that you MUST include the two textbooks used in this course, explicitly in the references, you got 3 points off (out of 25) for each reference omitted. In addition, you received at least 2 points off for each reference omitted in-text. Formatting errors were noted, and if you had enough of them for citations you received between 1 and 2 points off).
• Including unremarkable quotations--your job as students is to paraphrase the reference material to show that you understand it and that you can integrate it into your thought processes. The only exceptions to this would be if the quoted material is so cleverly worded, or insightful, that it cannot be paraphrased without losing its sense of content (there are no justifiable examples of that in our text books). Another exception is if the purpose of the paper was to study the works of a person...for example:
  
  Mark Twain never said "...the coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco..."
  
• Ignoring the extensive clarifications on figure citations and references given in class when we discussed the paper assignment..

5. Meteorology

Ignoring class discussions on advection fog

Not discussing (which naturally would have been well-illustrated by some or all of the figures):

• Role of Pacific High
• Role of Northern American Thermal Low
• Role of California Current
• Role of Upwelling
• Depth of foggy air (relates to the fog outlining the coast on visible satellite images)