San Francisco State University
Department of Geosciences

Comment 1:

When preparing a formal written essay that requires you to comment on a or to summarize thoughtfully a published article, you must include the full citation (in correct AMS format) of the article being commented upon. This requires you to refer to the article in required format:

"...In his article "The Human Element in Weather Forecasting," Doswell (1986) argues that humans should play an important role in forecasting..."

or something like that. At the end of your essay, you then will have the full citation.

Doswell, C.A. III, 1986: The Human Element in Weather Forecasting, Nat. Wea. Dig., 11, 6-17.

(No points taken off for this...but will be in the grading of future assignments.)

Comment 2:

Even a one page summary article should be thoughtfully edited. English structure/syntax should be carefully checked. The essay should be proofread.

Paragraphs should have a topic sentence, and sentences in that paragraph should relate to that topic sentence, not the other way around. Paragraphs should not consist of disorganized set of observations, that ends up reading like "...and another thing he said..." "...and another thing he said..."

Hint: Read the last sentence of one of your paragraphs. If that sentence does not relate (or support) the first or topic sentence of the paragraph in which it resides, you have constructed the paragraph improperly.

Comment 3:

You may include quotations in an essay of this sort only in very restrictive circumstance. In general, quotations are not allowed if the inclusion of the quotation is only meant to save you the work of thoughtfully paraphrasing what the author said. Quotations are allowed if the purpose of the essay is to comment on some remarkable comment made by someone, as in "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!"

In this short assignment, inclusion of quotations instead of well-considered restatement or paraphrase suggests to the reader that the author of the essay did not understand what Doswell had to say, or decided not to spend the mental/physical effort to understand and process Doswell's points.

Submissions of manuscripts to professional journals in which the literature review consists of a series of quotations, instead of thoughtful reflections of how the thoughts expressed in those quotations relate to what the author is trying to show or prove, usually results in instant rejection of the manuscript, or, at least, a request for resubmission with quotations removed.

Comment 4:

Doswell's main points in this article were easy to follow. But did you make his logic difficult to follow by improper organization of how you presented these ideas and commented upon them?

Comment 5:

Since by definition a paragraph has to consist of a topic sentence plus sentences that relate to that topic sentence, "one sentence" paragraphs are not allowed in formal science writing (although they are allowed in narrative writing).

Comment 6:

The assignment asked you to summarize and to make comments about Doswell's ideas in this article. Hence, the title should be:

Comments on "The Human Element In Weather Forecasting"

or, if you want to make it snazzy so that the title also expresses a point of view...

"The Human Element in Weather Forecasing: Is it still present?"

or something like that.