GEOLOGY A-LEVEL COURSEWORK GUIDELINES
OVERALL STRUCTURE OF YOUR COURSEWORK
Cover sheet
Title and Contents Page
Introduction
 planning and purpose
 prediction
 procedures - methodology - how you collected the data
Implementing - your data
Presentation - your charts, diagrams, maps, sketches and annotated
photographs.
Analysis – how you have analysed your data
Interpretation - your geological explanations of the data you collected
Conclusions - the final summary of your findings and the success of your
predictions
Evaluation – the assessment of the success of your investigation plan, with
suggestions as to how your planning, your data collection or your interpretations could
have been improved.
Bibliography - list of books, websites, maps, etc. that you have used.
Rough work - draft notes, tracking sheets etc. in a plastic wallet at the back.
The coursework must not be presented in a file. Plastic wallets must not be used
except to hold rough work and field notes. Use treasury tags to keep the work in
order.
If you have organisational or artistic talent then you can make a large poster instead of
writing a report. The poster would cover the implementing, presenting, analysing,
interpretation and conclusions sections. You would need to write introduction and
evaluation sections separately.
Here is some guidance about how to organise each section of your report.
INTRODUCTION - PLANNING (8 marks)
You need to plan your own investigation. It has to be different from anyone else's.
You will be given a question and asked to devise a way to answer it. That is the
purpose of your coursework. You will need to justify your choice of investigation
and your procedures. For instance, why did you choose that particular location to
collect data? Why did you collect 30 sets of data?
In your introduction you need to explain the question you are studying and then you
need to make predictions which say what you expect to find. After that you should
explain how you have devised procedures to answer the question. The procedures are
the methods by which you collected the data and the methodology needs to be written
up in a separate section of the introduction. You should give a lot of detail:How did you choose the type of information you collected?
How did you sample (or select) the information?
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It is important that you justify your statements throughout your coursework. You
should be able to 'prove' or 'justify' any statements you make or any conclusions you
reach, e.g.:
Can you justify the fact that a quartz pebble you find is made of quartz? Say how
you know, e.g. I tested it with a steel pin and it did not scratch so it must have a
hardness of more than 6.5.
Can you justify the fact that a sedimentary rock you find is well-sorted? Say how
you know, e.g. I used the grain size card and most of the particles were the same size.
IMPLEMENTING
(8 marks)
This is the section in which you record the data you have collected. It must be your
own data. Your raw data (field notes or experiment notes) must be handed in. Field
notes, in a plastic wallet, can be fastened securely with treasury tags. You will need to
cut the appropriate pages out of the yellow field notebook in some cases. Your data
may consist of observations, e.g. identification of minerals or rocks, descriptions of
processes or rocks and actual measurements of many types of data.
Mention the methods you used to sample (select) your data. Explain why you took the
sample the way you did, e.g. I used a random sampling table on a grid on the rock
exposure because it was an objective way of selecting my sample.
Recording the data should be done very neatly in your field notebooks or on paper.
Use neat tables with tallies, or neat field-sketches or neatly labelled photographs. If
you know the type of data you will be collecting, draw up a table before you begin to
collect it, to save time in the field, e.g.
Pebble
Long axis(cms) Radius (cms) Composition Orientation
1
2
Your data should be collected as accurately as possible, of course. Higher level marks
are gained if you point out how you could have improved the accuracy and
competence of your data collection.
PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION (8 marks)
Plan how you will present the data you have collected. It can be in the form of charts,
diagrams or graphs.
Analysing means what you do with the data you collect. Sometimes it is appropriate
to graph it, but often you are analysing information when you are describing and
explaining a feature, or adding labels to maps, photographs and sketches. Neat tables,
graphs and diagrams all help the reader understand your data.
Analysis may involve finding averages or using statistical tests or a written account or
annotations and labels on diagrams. You must label and annotate your photos.
Interpreting means explaining. You should write an explanation for all the
observations that you make. Remember that what might be a clear explanation to you
may not be clear to someone who has not been to the same place, or done the same
experiment. Your explanations need to be simple, but clear. You can explain your
observations as you describe the data, or you can have a separate interpretation
section.
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EVALUATION (6 marks)
Finally, you will gain marks from saying to what extent the purpose of your
coursework has been achieved, and saying what you could do better next time. This
should be written up in the evaluation section.
Go back to your predictions to see how well they stood up to testing. Comment on
how you could develop your original ideas in the light of your results. Say whether
your planning could have been improved. Assess how reliable your data is and how
it could have been improved.
FINAL CHECK – DOES IT ALL MAKE SENSE?
Here are some guidelines: Where did you carry out the coursework (if this is field-work)? Draw maps to
show the sites where you collected data. Add localities to any base maps you are
given. You must use map grid references for any field localities.
 What did it look like? Field sketches, with scales, titles and labels gain marks.
Labelled photographs are helpful. Buy postcards and label them fully.
 Terminology (which means the geological terms you use) and spelling should be
accurate. Do not be afraid of using technical geological language that you would
not usually use in speech. This coursework is meant to be understood by
geologists and they will appreciate your use of the correct terms. I do not
recommend that you word-process your coursework, unless you are very, very
good. The process of using the keyboard gets in the way of the flow of ideas.
 You should ask someone else to read your report to correct your spelling, and
check that your English is correct, even if they do not understand the geological
content of the coursework.
 Number your pages and give a contents page at the start, and a bibliography (list of
the books and materials (e.g. maps) you have referred to), at the end.
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