I may be mistaken but there seems to be a trend these days toward ignoring both written and verbal instructions. Now that presents a bit of a dilemma since, to the best of my knowledge, there is no other way to convey instructions. Of course, examples might help, but those also must be either heard or read (and followed!) Nonetheless, in the interest of improving your submissions in any way I can, I've prepared a checklist for your use when submitting assignments.

WARNING: If you ignore this checklist, expect to miss points on every assignment from now on. Maybe I'm getting old and crotchedy, but I no longer have the patience to keep correcting the same simple mistakes, over and over, week after week. If you have a better suggestion about how to obtain compliance, please let me know.

Many entries in the checklist are hyperlinked to an example, so you can be sure you know what is expected of you.

Every assignment should include the following:

1. your name at the top
2. the assignment number and title
3. the date you submitted the assignment
4. *a title
5. *proper grammar, for example:
1. noun-verb agreement (not "they is going")
2. complete sentences (i.e. a verb and a noun)
3. the correct verb tense (not "when he come back")
6. *proper formatting, for example:
• paragraph indentation or a blank space between paragraphs
• (note: this may not look right in in some web browsers, but you should be able to figure it out on your own; if not, ask.)
• a blank space after the period at the end of a sentence
• capitalization of the first letter in:
• formal nouns
• first word of each sentence
7. *double-spaced text in the body (my example below is single-spaced because it is written in html, which does not support this type of formatting)
8. *references (if required) should be:
1. titled: e.g. "References" (without the quotes)
2. single spaced, but with a blank line separating each reference
3. GSA format (very specific; ignore it at your peril)
9. *word count in brackets after the text body and before the after matter such as any references

Above all else, you might want to ask yourself: "Is this the very best work I can do?"  If the answer is "no", then maybe you should ask yourself, "Why am I such a worthless slug?"

Clay Harris
Assignment 2, Encyclopedic dictionary entry
23 Sept. 2005

Bedding plane

        Bedding planes are two-dimensional surfaces -- they have no thickness; bedding planes are merely a surface of contact between two sedimentary layers. These layers may be laminations – having a thickness less than 1 cm – or beds, which are thicker than 1cm. Bedding planes form when conditions change during sediment deposition by gravity, wind, water, or ice. These conditions include water velocity, sediment volume, or grain size. Thus, the character of sediment accumulation changes and a bedding plane may form.
        Bedding planes often host features, called bedding plane markings, which occur either at the base of a bed or its top. Those at the base typically form as a new layer accumulates; for example, groove marks may develop as a pebble gouges out sediment from a stream bed. Bedding plane markings at the top of a bed generally form after sedimentation ceases; for example,  mud cracks form by desiccation of exposed mud.
        If you trace any bedding plane laterally, you will find that it eventually ends in one of three ways: (a) erosion destroyed the over and underlying beds as well as the bedding plane; (b) the two beds become one; (c) one of the beds involved gradually thins and then disappears.
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