1B. Projection - If you leave large areas like Oregon in Decimal Degrees (unprojected), it looks strange. Remember that the map is a communication tool, and you don't want people to look at it and wonder "why does Oregon look funny?" You want them to wonder "why are all of those landslides bunched together?"

1C. Class Breaks - Class breaks in data cause one to wonder if there is some significance to them, for example 127 - 255, instead of 100 - 250. Now, I actually used this example for a reason; this is the break between 2^7 and 2^8 (those ^ are exponent symbols). This is a legitimate non-standard class break. So non-standard class breaks should have some meaning, and probably should be explained in the text.

Most of the time you want to just break the classes at multiples of 5 or 10 or 100 just so our base-10 oriented brains don't get confused.

1D. "Study Area" - It is perfectly okay to use "Study Area" as a label on your location map instead of using those "blow out" lines. In fact, it is preferable, if you can't get the blow out lines to look good!

1E. Background colors - The background colors or colors of solid objects like states and counties shouldn't interfere with the foreground information that you are trying to present. If you look at the map and it makes your eyes wiggle you should probably choose a different background color or none at all!

1F. Colors of same things - Use the same color for things like counties when you are not trying to differentiate them. In this case there's nothing special about the different counties so they should all be the same color or none at all.

1G Present tense, active voice - Use the present tense when describing steps. Assume that you are instructing someone else in how to accomplish these tasks. This is better than a narrative style "First I opened my project, then I added some data" type of approach. Use the active, rather than passive, voice for sentences. Here is a good discussion of this issue: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/Files/112.html