Seminars are scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at 4:00 PM. Additional optional seminars that may be included as part of the Geology 190 series may be scheduled at other times. Announcements of such seminars will be posted in the Geology Department and on the department events calendar.

The course is graded Pass/No Pass, and there are only a few requirements, to wit:

How To Get a 'Pass':

You must satisfy the following three conditions:

1. Attendance:
You must attend all the regularly scheduled seminars.
• Attendance will be taken at the seminars
• It is your responsibility to sign the attendance sheet.
 
2. Reading assignments:
• Material contained in the advice page.
• Reading material in GEL190 folder on the book shelf in Rm 181.
DO NOT TAKE THIS MATERIAL OUT OF THE ROOM, except BRIEFLY to make your own copy.
You would also find the following references useful as a means of improving your writing. They are inexpensive and can be ordered through the bookstore or checked out from the library.
• G.D. Gopen and J.A. Swan, 1990. The science of scientific writing. American Scientist, 78: 550-558.
This article is in the Geology 190 folder in Rm 181.  It is not long, and we think you will find it a great help in writing these abstracts and in writing scientific papers in general.
• Bates, R.L. 1988. Writing in Earth Science. American Geological Institute, Alexandria, VA., 50p.
• Strunk and White, The Elements of Style, Macmillan.
• Williams, J. M., Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace, Harper-Collins, 1994.
 
3. Abstracts:
• You must write three abstracts of acceptable or better quality on three different talks to pass the course.
• Abstracts must be based on the regularly scheduled or approved optional seminars (Do not abstract faculty introductions).
• The abstracts should be no more than 250 words (about one double-spaced page).
• E-mail your abstract (plain text only) to GEL190-abstracts@geology.ucdavis.edu by the due dates.
• Abstracts will be graded with equal emphasis on
1. The information content: how well did you cover the important information in the talk, and
2. Your writing style, including the organization and structure of the abstract, paragraphs, and sentences.
• Each abstract will be graded Acceptable or Rewrite. Abstracts must be rewritten until they are acceptable. There is no guarantee that a rewritten abstract will be acceptable.
• Rewritten abstracts must be resubmitted within 1 week of their return.

Any one of the following conditions will result in a 'NoPass' grade.

• Failing to attend each seminar and to sign the attendance sheet
• Writing fewer than 3 acceptable abstracts
• Missing the due dates

Editing Symbols

There are a number of very common problems that we run across in grading writing. In order to save time in writing comments, we frequently use the abbreviations in the left column. This list provides a translation of these error codes.

• ANT Pronoun has no clear antecedent to which it refers.
• AWK Awkward sentence construction
• CW Incorrect or inappropriate choice of word.
• GR Incorrect grammar, such as subject verb agreement, etc.
• LIC Sentence with low information content
• LL Unexplained logical leap. The logical connection between the indicated sentence, part of a sentence, or group of sentences and the preceding sentence, part of a sentence, or group of sentences is not evident.
• NC Meaning is not clear
• NP Non-parallel sentence construction. Grammatically equivalent parts of a sentence have grammatically different structures.
• NS Not a complete sentence
• RO Run-on sentence
• ROP Run-on paragraph. The paragraph is not focused on a single idea.
• Sp Incorrect spelling
• SWYM Say what you mean. Generally used when the subject, verb, and object of a sentence, or an adjective and the noun it modifies, do not make sense together.