Writing Hints
Writing HintsFor a fortunate few of us, writing isn’t too difficult. For most of us, though, writing is challenging. Writing is about communicating your thoughts clearly and unambiguously, and this is often a challenging task. How you present your thoughts through the written word is important, especially when communicating about a specialized discipline like GISystem design. You have to understand the discipline in which you are working, and you also have to communicate that knowledge to the reader.
The goal of the writing assignments in this course is simple: demonstrate to the instructor that you understand the specific design process for each lesson and how that process is implemented. You likely spent many hours learning the material, refining the design, developing the wire-frame, and performing prototyping. You probably feel pretty good about reaching this stage of the process. But don’t stop yet! The hard part is to communicate what you did and what you discovered during the design process so that your readers will understand it, too.
Remember that though you have a form of intimacy with the system design process, your reader – not even your instructor – does not. When you write these assignments, you should keep in mind that you are not writing to someone with your level of intimacy. Rather, you need to explain everything, justify why you did what you did, how you did it, and do so using clear and concise language.
As part of your grade with every written assignment, I will assess the clarity, organization, and formatting of your work. What follows is an overview of some commonsense approaches to clear and concise writing for GISystem analysis and design.
Online Resources
The EMS Writer-in-Residence and several colleagues here at Penn State recently compiled a comprehensive guide to Science Communication in Earth and Mineral Sciences. You will find a range of useful suggestions and guidance there that will help with your term project and other writing for the course. The Guide includes some Discipline-Specific material as well; check out the "Geography" link there.
There are quite a few online guides available on how to write about, design, and include figures and tables in your paper. These are some of the most approachable.
- Penn State offers a rather comprehensive outline of topics related to writing in general.
- Common Errors in Student Research Papers by Rice University. This site has many spot-on examples of common errors and ways to prevent them from creeping into your paper. A short site, but worth the read.
- Here is a special section on including figures and tables.
- Purdue Online Writing Lab.
- Examples of how to cite figures in your paper (i.e., using a figure that you did not create).
Including Maps, Graphs, and Illustrations in a Paper
Including Maps, Graphs, and Illustrations in a PaperMaps, Graphs, and Illustrations
All maps, images, and graphs should be uniquely and sequentially referenced with figure numbers. Each figure reference should appear in the text as Figure 1, Figure 2, and so forth according to the number of figures you use. The location of a specific figure should follow the first mention of the figure in the text. You do not need to break a paragraph in order to place a figure. Simply place the figure at the end of the paragraph where that figure is first mentioned. Each figure should have a short caption that briefly explains the important information about what is being illustrated. The figure caption should be positioned below the figure.
Discussing Maps, Graphs, and Other Illustrations in a Paper
You probably spent hours creating your figures. Thus, you have an intimate knowledge of the details of what each one shows. Unfortunately, your reader does not share this same intimacy. Therefore, you must make clear to the reader the important information, patterns, or trends that they should see. To be clear, start your discussion with a general overview of each figure. For example, "Figure 5 shows a prototype interface for the bicycle accident recording app." Once that general overview is presented, you can move on to discuss some of the relevant details. Below are two examples of figures and their captions.
Here is an appropriate example discussion:
Figure 1.03 shows an example of a story map that was created for locating notable features of Palm Springs, California, as a website (a) (Esri, 2013) and app (b) (Esri, 2015). The interface of this story map would be a good starting place for a more robust mobile reporting app. If there are instances reported on the app by other trail users, anyone else opening the site would be alerted to these notations from a map similar to this based on their current GPS location. The trail user could then use a form to either add his/her own suggestion or corroborate an existing notation. However, would the trail users be comfortable with a more sophisticated solution such as this, or would a simpler form be necessary? This would ultimately be solved in meetings between trail users, organizations, and database managers, and the prototype testing that would follow.
Note that in addition to a brief explanation of each image, the image source is provided as well as a disclaimer that the images are used solely for educational purposes.
Here is a discussion of an illustration shown in Figure 1.04:
When a pipeline is designed, constructed and mapped, the same information will go through several departments. In the existing workflow, see Figure 1.04, Engineering designs pipelines, and Pipeline Drafting draws pipelines in Microstation. The Construction builds the pipelines, which may not match the original Engineering design. Afterward, Survey staff record as-built pipelines by marking up the design drawing on paper and draft in AutoCAD. A finalized as-built drawing will be created by Pipeline Drafting. Finally, Mapping brings the pipelines from Microstation to ArcSDE database. The same pipeline information is created by several departments in different formats and saved at different locations. Clearly, the duplication of effort and data redundancy has contributed to the inefficient workflow.
The following table shows what to avoid when discussing maps, graphs, and other illustrations in a paper.
| Wording issues with Graphics | Irrationality of the Statement |
|---|---|
| Figure 1 below shows… | "Below" is unnecessary as the Figure 1 reference will direct the reader to the appropriate location. |
| A county like Bennington County in Vermont… | Unless the place name is specifically located on the map (or graphic), don’t mention it. This reference will only confuse the reader as they look on the map for something that doesn’t exist. Avoid repeating the same word in the same sentence (“county” is redundant). |
| Inserting a graphic without any reference to it or explanation of it. | If you are going to insert a graphic, make sure you reference it and explain it for the reader’s benefit. |
| Since the results show a positive correlation, each of the significant counties must be explored | First, make sure that you did, in fact, assert that a positive correlation was observed and verified. Second, if you say you are going to do something, then make sure you do - or the reader will be lost. |
| Figure 3 shows a region between these NARS that supports similar habitats and inhabitants that are also of great ecological and biological value. | If you say there is something of importance appearing in a graphic (i.e., “great ecological and biological value”) make sure that it does so. And then explain what that importance is to the reader. |
| Figure 8 shows a map of a reclassification of values ranging from 0 to 6. In this figure, cells of a 0 value imply that no variables met the desired parameters and cells whose value is 6 suggests that all parameters were met. | What about the values in between? |
| Taking a closer look at the data in Figure 10. It exhibits a lot of potential habitat available for further protection efforts. | The problem when using "a lot" or other similar descriptors is that they are ambiguous in meaning. What exactly does “a lot” quantify to? |
Including Tables in a Paper
Including Tables in a PaperTables
Just to be clear, tables (unlike figures) are most often used to report lists of numbers, qualitative information, or other information that can be reported in a list. Similar to figures, all tables should be uniquely and sequentially referenced by a table number. Each table reference should appear in the text as Table 1, Table 2, and so forth according to the number of tables you use. The location of a specific table should follow the first mention of the table in the text. You do not need to break a paragraph so as to place a table. Simply place the table at the end of the paragraph where that table is first mentioned. Each table should have a short header that briefly explains the important information about what is being listed. The table header should be positioned above the table. The anatomy of a properly organized table is shown in Table 1.
Discussing Tables in a Paper
You probably spent hours creating your table. Thus, you have an intimate knowledge of the details of what each one shows. Unfortunately, your reader does not share this same intimacy. Therefore, you must make clear to the reader the important information that they should see. To be clear, start your discussion with the general overview of each table. For example, Table 1 lists the action items in each GIS component. Once that general overview is presented, you can move on to discuss some of the relevant details. Table 1 is the first of two examples of tables and their headers.
GIS Component | Action Item [column titles] |
|---|---|
| Data Collection |
|
| Data Storage |
|
| Data Display |
|
1 = B-Map Viewer is an internal GUI [footnote]
Here is a sample discussion for Table 2 that would appear in the text.
Only one application, ArcGIS Earth could not produce simple maps and export simple point, line, and polygon files (Table 1). However, the number of steps required to create and export simple point, line, and polygon files varied between applications. Of the applications with these capabilities, ArcGIS Explorer and Google Earth Pro required the fewest steps to create new vector files. Vector creation in ArcGIS for Desktop, gvSig, QGIS, and uDig all required two steps to create files, file creations, and editing. If vector creation requires fewer steps and is more user-friendly, then ArcGIS Explorer and Google Earth Pro performed better for this requirement. In addition, only ArcGIS for Desktop, ArcGIS Earth, ArcGIS Explorer, and QGIS were capable of accessing data from the PIFWO geodatabase (Table 1), though all applications were capable of loading and viewing shapefiles and GeoTIFF files, two common formats used by PIFWO.
Table 2. Summary of GIS application testing to determine if they were capable of completing required tasks. Applications with a score of 1 were capable of completing the required task while applications with a score of 0 were not. Required tasks are shown on each row of the table with a final row summarizing the score for the application for all tasks. All applications are listed on the first row of the table. For details about each system, see their associated reference below.
| Requirement | Applications | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ArcGIS for Desktop1 | ArcGIS Earth2 | ARCGIS Explorer3 | Google Earth Pro4 | gvSIG5 | QGIS6 | uDig7 | |
| Geodatabase Access | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Vector Creation | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Map Production | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Overall Score (Sum) | 3 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
1 ESRI, 2016a; 2 ESRI, 2016b; 3 ESRI, 2016c; 4 Google, 2016; 5 gvSIG Association, 2016; 6 QGIS, 2016; and 7Refractions Research, 2016.
Table 3 outlines some examples of problematic wording and why the wording is confusing to the reader.
| Wording Issues with Graphics | Irrationality of the Statement |
|---|---|
| Table 1 below shows… | "Below" is unnecessary as the "Table 1" reference will direct the reader to the appropriate location. |
| Inserting a table without any reference to or explanation of said table. | If you are going to insert a table, make sure you reference it and explain its contents for the reader’s benefit. |
| Since the data show a trend… | First, make sure that you did, in fact, assert that a trend in the data was observed and verified in the body of the text. Second, if you say you are going to do something, then make sure you do - or the reader will be lost. |
| Table 3 shows a range of data that suggests an important correlation between x and y. | If you say there is something of importance appearing in a table (i.e., “an important correlation”) make sure that is evident in the table. And then support that claim with numerical evidence from the table and explain what that importance is to the reader. |
Finding and Citing Sources
Finding and Citing SourcesPenn State Libraries
Writing an exploratory abstract before starting a written paper can be helpful. But after you define the scope of your topic you will need to figure out what knowledge exists about this topic already. While Google’s standard search engine has become second nature to most of us, we encourage you to explore other methods for retrieval of scientific/technical information. As a Penn State student, you have access to a vast digital library. You may access journal articles and eBooks remotely online. You can even get print materials delivered to your home!
After completing this class, you will be practiced in compiling a comprehensive reference list to support and drive your project development, professional writing, and your own exploration of ideas. We encourage you to get familiar with the access to academic publications provided by the PSU libraries.
Google Scholar
To help navigate academic sources, Google Scholar offers an easy to use platform to locate articles and find keywords to use in further searches. Google Scholar makes it easy:
- to search for publications from a specific scholar,
- to search by keyword to find commonly referenced works pertaining to a specific topic, and
- to find new sources by exploring the “Related articles” and “Cited by” features.
Google Scholar also provides multiple ways to filter your searches (click on the ‘hamburger’ icon next to “Google Scholar” at the top of the search page, then pick “Advanced Search” to access these). For more search tips, see Google’s recommendations and a tutorial from the Penn State Libraries.
As you navigate Google Scholar, it is helpful to know about how Google keeps track of metrics pertaining to individual articles and authors. For publications, the “cited by” metric tells you how many other papers have cited this one. A key metric for individual authors is the h-index which measures how many times a scientist’s most cited papers have been cited.
Also note that through the PSU Libraries you have access to Web of Science, which offers similar tools to search academic publications with more control over search parameters but a smaller set of publications to search on (primarily those published in refereed journals and repeating conferences; thus typically missing book chapters, theses and dissertations, and many conferences and workshops).
Citing Sources
As you explore articles, websites, and other publications, it is important to keep track of the citations for papers you find useful. This is best done with a citation manager. In addition to keeping track of works you have consulted and notes that you may have made along the way; these citation managers generate bibliographies and works cited pages very easily! There are a couple of free citation managers that we recommend:
Our favorite paid option is Endnote ($75 for Penn State students). The Smithsonian Libraries prepared a useful comparison of these three citation managers that is worth a look.
Citation practices
Throughout this course, please follow formal citation practices to consistently cite both electronic and print sources. Rules for citation practices can be found online. For this course, we suggest that you use the Chicago style but if you are more familiar with another citation style, feel free to use that but be consistent.
We encourage you to draw from a range of sources from academic articles to topical magazines to company promotional material. As you do so, we expect that you maintain proper citation practices.