coherence essay term

• Literary Terms
• Definition & Examples
• When & How to Write Coherently

I. What is Coherence?

Coherence describes the way anything, such as an argument (or part of an argument) “hangs together.”  If something has coherence, its parts are well-connected and all heading in the same direction. Without coherence, a discussion may not make sense or may be difficult for the audience to follow. It’s an extremely important quality of formal writing.

Coherence is relevant to every level of organization, from the sentence level up to the complete argument. However, we’ll be focused on the paragraph level in this article. That’s because:

• Sentence-level coherence is a matter of grammar, and it would take too long to explain all the features of coherent grammar.
• Most people can already write a fairly coherent sentence, even if their grammar is not perfect.
• When you write coherent paragraphs, the argument as a whole will usually seem coherent to your readers.

Although coherence is primarily a feature of arguments, you may also hear people talk about the “coherence” of a story, poem, etc. However, in this context the term is extremely vague, so we’ll focus on formal essays for the sake of simplicity.

Coherence is, in the end, a matter of perception. This means it’s a completely subjective judgement. A piece of writing is coherent if and only if the reader thinks it is.

II. Examples of Coherence

There are many distinct features that help create a sense of coherence. Let’s look at an extended example and go through some of the features that make it seem coherent. Most people would agree that this is a fairly coherent paragraph:

Credit cards are convenient , but dangerous . People often get them in order to make large purchases easily without saving up lots of money in advance. This is especially helpful for purchases like cars, kitchen appliances, etc., that you may need to get without delay . However, this convenience comes at a high price : interest rates. The more money you put on your credit card, the more the bank or credit union will charge you for that convenience . If you’re not careful, credit card debt can quickly break the bank and leave you in very dire economic circumstances!

• Topic Sentence . The paragraph starts with a very clear, declarative topic sentence, and the rest of the paragraph follows that sentence. Everything in the paragraph is tied back to the statement in the beginning.
• Key terms . The term “credit card” appears repeatedly in this short paragraph. This signals the reader that the whole paragraph is about the subject of credit cards. Similarly, the word convenience (and related words) are also peppered throughout. In addition, the key term “ danger ” appears in the topic sentence and is then explained fully as the paragraph goes on.
• Defined terms . For most readers, the terms in this paragraph will be quite clear and will not need to be defined. Some readers, however, might not understand the term “interest rates,” and they would need an explanation. To these readers, the paragraph will seem less coherent !

Clear transitions . Each sentence flows into the next quite easily, and readers can follow the line of logic without too much effort.

III. The Importance of Coherence

Say you’re reading a piece of academic writing – maybe a textbook. As you read, you find yourself drifting off, having to read the same sentence over and over before you understand it. Maybe, after a while, you get frustrated and give up on the chapter. What happened?

Nine times out of ten, this is a symptom of incoherence. Your brain is unable to find a unified argument or narrative in the book. This may become frustrating and often happens when a book is above your current level of understanding. To someone else, the writing might seem perfectly coherent, because they understand the concepts involved. But from your perspective, the chapter seems incoherent. And as a result, you don’t get as much out of it as you otherwise would.

How can you avoid this in your own writing? How can you make sure that readers don’t misunderstand you (or just give up altogether)? The answer is to work on coherent writing. Coherence is perhaps the most important feature of argumentative writing. Without it, everything falls apart. If an argument is not coherent, it doesn’t matter how good the evidence is, or how beautiful the writing is: an incoherent argument will never persuade anyone or even hold their attention.

V. Examples in Literature and Scholarship

Since coherence is subjective, people will disagree about the examples. This is especially true in scholarly fields , where authors are writing for a very specific audience of experts; anyone outside that audience is likely to see the work as incoherent. For example, the various fields of analytic philosophy are a great place to look for coherence in scholarly work. Analytic philosophers are trained to write very carefully, with all the steps in the argument carefully laid out ahead of time. So their arguments usually have a remarkable internal coherence. However, analytic philosophy is a very obscure topic, and very few people are trained to understand the terms these scholars use! Thus, ironically, some of the most coherent writers in academia (from an expert perspective) usually come across as incoherent to the majority of readers.

For writing Indian Schools: a Nation’s Neglect , journalist Jill Burcum was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in the editorial writing category. An excellent example of coherence in journalistic writing, the editorial deals with the shabby federal schools that are meant for Native Americans on reservations. The essay’s paragraphs are much shorter than they would be in an essay. Yet each one still revolves around a single, tightly focused set of ideas. You can find key concepts (such as “neglect”) that run as themes throughout the piece. The whole editorial is also full of smooth and clear transitions.

VI. Examples in Media and Pop Culture

You can often see something like argumentative coherence in political satire. Good satire always focuses on a single question and lampoons it in a highly coherent manner. Watch, for example, Jon Stewart’s opening monologues on The Daily Show. Whatever your opinion on Stewart’s politics, it’s hard to argue with the fact that he uses terms carefully. He transitions smoothly and focuses on a single, tightly controlled set of concepts in each monologue.

Sports debates can also provide a good example of coherence. When you watch a show about sports (like SportsCenter or First Take), pay attention to the attributes of coherence. How do the hosts and guests use their terms? Do they repeat key terms? Do they start each monologue with a “topic sentence”? Do they stick to one topic, or do they go off on tangents?

VII. Related Terms

“Cogency” sounds like “coherence,” but means convincing or persuasive . The two terms are related, though: an argument cannot be cogent if it’s not coherent, because coherence is essential to persuasion. However, an argument could be coherent but not cogent (i.e. it’s clear, unified, and easy to read, but the argument does not persuade its reader).

Focus is also related to coherence. Often, coherence problems emerge when the focus is too broad. When the focus is broad, there are just too many parts to cover all at once, and writers struggle to maintain coherence.

List of Terms

• Alliteration
• Amplification
• Anachronism
• Anthropomorphism
• Antonomasia
• APA Citation
• Aposiopesis
• Autobiography
• Bildungsroman
• Characterization
• Circumlocution
• Cliffhanger
• Comic Relief
• Connotation
• Deus ex machina
• Deuteragonist
• Doppelganger
• Double Entendre
• Dramatic irony
• Equivocation
• Extended Metaphor
• Figures of Speech
• Flash-forward
• Foreshadowing
• Intertextuality
• Juxtaposition
• Literary Device
• Malapropism
• Onomatopoeia
• Parallelism
• Pathetic Fallacy
• Personification
• Point of View
• Polysyndeton
• Protagonist
• Red Herring
• Rhetorical Device
• Rhetorical Question
• Science Fiction
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Synesthesia
• Turning Point
• Understatement
• Urban Legend
• Verisimilitude
• Essay Guide
• Cite This Website

Achieving coherence

“A piece of writing is coherent when it elicits the response: ‘I follow you. I see what you mean.’ It is incoherent when it elicits the response: ‘I see what you're saying here, but what has it got to do with the topic at hand or with what you just told me above?’ ” - Johns, A.M

Transitions

Parallelism, challenge task, what is coherence.

Coherence in a piece of writing means that the reader can easily understand it. Coherence is about making everything flow smoothly. The reader can see that everything is logically arranged and connected, and relevance to the central focus of the essay is maintained throughout.

Repetition in a piece of writing does not always demonstrate cohesion.   Study these sentences:

So, how does repetition as a cohesive device work?

When a pronoun is used, sometimes what the pronoun refers to (ie, the referent) is not always clear. Clarity is achieved by  repeating a key noun or synonym . Repetition is a cohesive device used deliberately to improve coherence in a text.

In the following text, decide ifthe referent for the pronoun  it   is clear. Otherwise, replace it  with the key noun English  where clarity is needed.

Click here to view the revised text.

Suggested improvement

English has almost become an international language. Except for Chinese, more people speak it (clear reference; retain)  than any other language. Spanish is the official language of more countries in the world, but more countries have English ( it is replaced with a key noun) as their official or unofficial second language. More than 70% of the world's mail is written in English ( it is replaced with a key noun).  It (clear reference; retain) is the primary language on the Internet.

Sometimes, repetition of a key noun is preferred even when the reference is clear. In the following text, it is clear that it  refers to the key noun gold , but when used throughout the text, the style becomes monotonous.

Improved text: Note where the key noun gold is repeated. The deliberate repetition creates interest and adds maturity to the writing style.

Gold , a precious metal, is prized for two important characteristics. First of all, gold has a lustrous beauty that is resistant to corrosion. Therefore, it is suitable for jewellery, coins and ornamental purposes. Gold never needs to be polished and will remain beautiful forever. For example, a Macedonian coin remains as untarnished today as the day it was made 23 centuries ago. Another important characteristic of gold is its usefulness to industry and science. For many years, it has been used in hundreds of industrial applications. The most recent use of gold is in astronauts’ suits. Astronauts wear gold -plated shields when they go outside spaceships in space. In conclusion, gold is treasured not only for its beauty but also its utility.

Pronoun + Repetition of key noun

Sometimes, greater cohesion can be achieved by using a pronoun followed by an appropriate key noun or synonym (a word with a similar meaning).

Transitions are like traffic signals. They guide the reader from one idea to the next. They signal a range of relationships between sentences, such as comparison, contrast, example and result. Click here for a more comprehensive list of Transitions (Logical Organisers) .

Test yourself: How well do you understand transitions?

Which of the three alternatives should follow the transition or logical organiser in capital letters to complete the second sentence?

Using transitions/logical organisers

Improve the coherence of the following paragraph by adding transitions in the blank spaces. Use the italicised hint in brackets to help you choose an apporpriate transition for each blank. If you need to, review the list of Transitions (Logical Organisers)   before you start.

Using transitions

Choose the most appropriate transition from the options given to complete the article:

Overusing transitions

While the use of appropriate transitions can improve coherence (as the previous practice activity shows), it can also be counterproductive if transitions are overused. Use transitions carefully to enhance and clarify the logical connection between ideas in extended texts. Write a range of sentences and vary sentence openings. 

Study the following examples:

Identifying cohesive devices

What is Coherence?

Coherence in writing refers to the logical connections and consistency that hold a text together, making it understandable and meaningful to the reader. Writers create coherence in three ways:

• logical consistency
• conceptual consistency
• linguistic consistency.

What is Logical Consistency?

• For instance, if they argue, “If it rains, the ground gets wet,” and later state, “It’s raining but the ground isn’t wet,” without additional explanation, this represents a logical inconsistency.

What is Conceptual Consistency?

• For example, if you are writing an essay arguing that regular exercise has multiple benefits for mental health, each paragraph should introduce and discuss a different benefit of exercise, all contributing to your main argument. Including a paragraph discussing the nutritional value of various foods, while interesting, would break the conceptual consistency, as it doesn’t directly relate to the benefits of exercise for mental health.

What is Linguistic Consistency?

• For example, if a writer jumps erratically between different tenses or switches point of view without clear demarcation, the reader might find it hard to follow the narrative, leading to a lack of linguistic coherence.

Related Concepts: Flow ; Given to New Contract ; Grammar ; Organization ; Organizational Structures ; Organizational Patterns ; Sentence Errors

Why Does Coherence Matter?

Coherence is crucial in writing as it ensures that the text is understandable and that the ideas flow logically from one to the next. When writing is coherent, readers can easily follow the progression of ideas, making the content more engaging and easier to comprehend. Coherence connects the dots for the reader, linking concepts, arguments, and details in a clear, logical manner.

Without coherence, even the most interesting or groundbreaking ideas can become muddled and lose their impact. A coherent piece of writing keeps the reader’s attention, demonstrates the writer’s control over their subject matter, and can effectively persuade, inform, or entertain. Thus, coherence contributes significantly to the effectiveness of writing in achieving its intended purpose.

How Do Writers Create Coherence in Writing?

• Your thesis statement serves as the guiding star of your paper. It sets the direction and focus, ensuring all subsequent points relate back to this central idea.
• Acknowledge and address potential counterarguments to strengthen your position and add depth to your writing.
• Use the genres and organizational patterns appropriate for your rhetorical situation . A deductive structure (general to specific) is often effective, guiding the reader logically through your argument. Yet different disciplines may privilege more inductive approaches , such as law and philosophy.
• When following a given-to-new order, writers move from what the reader already knows to new information. In formal or persuasive contexts, writers are careful to vet new information for the reader following information literacy laws and conventions .
• Strategic repetition of crucial terms and your thesis helps your readers follow your main ideas and evidence for claims 
• While repetition is useful, varying language with synonyms can prevent redundancy and keep the reader engaged.
• Parallelism in sentences can provide rhythm and clarity, making complex ideas easier to follow.
• Consistent use of pronouns avoids confusion and helps in maintaining a clear line of thought.
• Arrange your ideas in a sequence that naturally builds from one point to the next, ensuring each paragraph flows smoothly into the next .
• Signposting , or using phrases that indicate what’s coming next or what just happened, can help orient the reader within your argument.
• Don’t bother repeating your argument in your conclusion. Prioritize conciseness. Yet end with a call to action or appeal to kairos and ethos .

Recommended Resources

• Organization
• Organizational Patterns

Brevity - Say More with Less

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Coherence - How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Flow - How to Create Flow in Writing

Inclusivity - Inclusive Language

The Elements of Style - The DNA of Powerful Writing

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Definition of Coherence

Coherence is a Latin word, meaning “to stick together.” In a composition, coherence is a literary technique that refers to logical connections, which listeners or readers perceive in an oral or written text. In other words, it is a written or spoken piece that is not only consistent and logical, but also unified and meaningful. It makes sense when read or listened to as a whole. The structure of a coherent paragraph could be general to particular and particular to general or any other format.

Types of Coherence

• Local Level Coherent Text In this type of text, coherence occurs within small portions of a passage or a text.
• Global level Coherent Text In this type of text, coherence takes place within the whole text of a story or essay , rather than in its few parts.

Examples of Coherence in Literature

Example #1:  one man’s meat (by e.b. white).

“Scientific agriculture, however sound in principle, often seems strangely unrelated to, and unaware of, the vital, grueling job of making a living by farming. Farmers sense this quality in it as they study their bulletins, just as a poor man senses in a rich man an incomprehension of his own problems. The farmer of today knows, for example, that manure loses some of its value when exposed to the weather … But he knows also that to make hay he needs settled weather – better weather than you usually get in June.”

This is a global level coherent text passage in which White has wonderfully unified the sentences to make it a whole. He has started the passage with a general topic, scientific agriculture, but moved it to a specific text about farmers and their roles.

Example #2:  A Tale of Two Cities (by Charles Dickens)

“The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask … scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees—BLOOD.”

Taken from the novel , A Tale of Two Cities , this passage’s emphasis is on the idea of staining, and scrawling the word “blood,” which further brings coherence into the lines. The connection is thus made through the appearance of Wood-Sawyer, a man who scares Lucie later. This is how it achieves coherence.

Example #3:  Animal Farm (by George Orwell)

“ Now , comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of our strength … “No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.”

Through the speech of the Old Major, Orwell starts the passage about the miserable nature of the life of animals on the animal farm , and then he inspires them to think about how to safeguard their interests on the farm. The entire paragraph is an example of coherent speech.

Example #4:  Unpopular Essays (by Bertrand Russell)

“The word “philosophy” is one of which the meaning is by no means fixed. Like the word “religion,” it has one sense when used to describe certain features of historical cultures, and another when used to denote a study or an attitude of mind which is considered desirable in the present day. Philosophy, as pursued in the universities of the Western democratic world, is, at least in intention, part of the pursuit of knowledge, aiming at the same kind of detachment as is sought in science …”

See how brilliantly Russell has connected the ideas of philosophy and politics, by moving from a general to a specific topic, with sentences connecting one to another, creating coherence.

Coherence links the sentences of a work with one another. This may be done with paragraphs, making sure that each statement logically connects with the one preceding it, making the text easier for the readers to understand and follow. Also, ordering thoughts in a sequence helps the reader to move from one point to the next smoothly. As all of the sentences relate back to the topic, the thoughts and ideas flow smoothly.

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Cohesion And Coherence In Essay Writing

Table of contents, introduction.

Coherent essays are identified by relevance to the central topic. They communicate a meaningful message to a specific audience and maintain pertinence to the main focus. In a coherent essay, the sentences and ideas flow smoothly and, as a result, the reader can follow the ideas developed without any issues.

To achieve coherence in an essay, writers use lexical and grammatical cohesive devices. Examples of these cohesive devices are repetition, synonymy, antonymy, meronymy, substitutions , and anaphoric or cataphoric relations between sentences. We will discuss these devices in more detail below.

This article will discuss how to write a coherent essay. We will be focusing on the five major points.

• We will start with definitions of coherence and cohesion.
• Then, we will give examples of how a text can achieve cohesion.
• We will see how a text can be cohesive but not coherent.
• The structure of a coherent essay will also be discussed.
• Finally, we will look in detail at ways to improve cohesion and write a coherent essay.

Before illustrating how to write coherent essays, let us start with the definitions of coherence and cohesion and list the ways we can achieve cohesion in a coherent text.

Definitions Cohesion and Coherence

In general, coherence and cohesion refer to how a text is structured so that the elements it is constituted of can stick together and contribute to a meaningful whole. In coherent essays, writers use grammatical and lexical cohesive techniques so that ideas can flow meaningfully and logically.

What is coherence?

Coherence refers to the quality of forming a unified consistent whole. We can describe a text as being coherent if it is semantically meaningful, that is if the ideas flow logically to produce an understandable entity.

If a text is coherent it is logically ordered and connected. It is clear, consistent, and understandable.

Coherence is related to the macro-level features of a text which enable it to have a sense as a whole.

What is cohesion?

Cohesion is commonly defined as the grammatical and lexical connections that tie a text together, contributing to its meaning (i.e. coherence.)

While coherence is related to the macro-level features of a text, cohesion is concerned with its micro-level – the words, the phrases, and the sentences and how they are connected to form a whole.

If the elements of a text are cohesive, they are united and work together or fit well together.

To summarize, coherence refers to how the ideas of the text flow logically and make a text semantically meaningful as a whole. Cohesion is what makes the elements (e.g. the words, phrases, clauses, and sentences) of a text stick together to form a whole.

How to Achieve Cohesion And Coherence In Essay Writing

There are two types of cohesion: lexical and grammatical. Writers connect sentences and ideas in their essays using both lexical and grammatical cohesive devices.

Lexical cohesion

We can achieve cohesion through lexical cohesion by using these techniques:

• Repetition.

Now let’s look at these in more detail.

Repeating words may contribute to cohesion. Repetition creates cohesive ties within the text.

• Birds are beautiful. I like birds.

You can use a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word to achieve cohesion.

• Paul saw a snake under the mattress. The serpent was probably hiding there for a long time.

Antonymy refers to the use of a word of opposite meaning. This is often used to create links between the elements of a text.

• Old movies are boring, the new ones are much better.

This refers to the use of a word that denotes a subcategory of a more general class.

• I saw a cat . The animal was very hungry and looked ill.

Relating a superordinate term (i.e. animal) to a corresponding subordinate term (i.e. cat) may create more cohesiveness between sentences and clauses.

Meronymy is another way to achieve cohesion. It refers to the use of a word that denotes part of something but which is used to refer to the whole of it for instance faces can be used to refer to people as in “I see many faces here”. In the following example, hands refer to workers.

• More workers are needed. We need more hands to finish the work.

Grammatical cohesion

Grammatical cohesion refers to the grammatical relations between text elements. This includes the use of:

• Cataphora .
• Substitutions.
• Conjunctions and transition words.

Let us illustrate the above devices with some examples.

Anaphora is when you use a word referring back to another word used earlier in a text or conversation.

• Jane was brilliant. She got the best score.

The pronoun “she” refers back to the proper noun “Jane”.

Cataphora is the opposite of anaphora. Cataphora refers to the use of a word or phrase that refers to or stands for a following word or phrase.

• Here he comes our hero. Please, welcome John .

The pronoun “he” refers back to the proper noun “John”.

Ellipsis refers to the omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues.

• Liz had some chocolate bars, and Nancy an ice cream.

In the above example, “had” in “Nancy an ice cream” is left because it can be understood (or presupposed) as it was already mentioned previously in the sentence.

Elliptic elements can be also understood from the context as in:

• A: Where are you going?

Substitutions

Substitutions refer to the use of a word to replace another word.

• A: Which T-shirt would you like?
• B: I would like the pink one .

Conjunctions transition words

Conjunctions and transition words are parts of speech that connect words, phrases, clauses, or sentences.

• Examples of conjunctions: but, or, and, although, in spite of, because,
• Examples of transition words: however, similarly, likewise, specifically, consequently, for this reason, in contrast to, accordingly, in essence, chiefly, finally.

Here are some examples:

• I called Tracy and John.
• He was tired but happy.
• She likes neither chocolates nor cookies.
• You can either finish the work or ask someone to do it for you.
• He went to bed after he had done his homework.
• Although she is very rich, she isn’t happy.
• I was brought up to be responsible. Similarly , I will try to teach my kids how to take responsibility for their actions.

Cohesive but not coherent texts

Sometimes, a text may be cohesively connected, yet may still be incoherent.

Learners may wrongly think that simply linking sentences together will lead to a coherent text.

Here is an example of a text in which sentences are cohesively connected, yet the overall coherence is lacking:

The player threw the ball toward the goalkeeper. Balls are used in many sports. Most balls are spheres, but American football is an ellipsoid. Fortunately, the goalkeeper jumped to catch the ball. The crossbar in the soccer game is made of iron. The goalkeeper was standing there.

The sentences and phrases in the above text are decidedly cohesive but not coherent.

There is a use of:

• Repetition of: the ball, goalkeeper, the crossbar.
• Conjunctions and transition words: but, fortunately.

The use of the above cohesive devices does not result in a meaningful and unified whole. This is because the writer presents material that is unrelated to the topic. Why should a writer talk about what the crossbar is made of? And is talking about the form balls in sports relevant in this context? What is the central focus of the text?

A coherent essay has to be cohesively connected and logically expressive of the central topic.

How to write a coherent essay?

1. start with an outline.

An outline is the general plan of your essays. It contains the ideas you will include in each paragraph and the sequence in which these ideas will be mentioned.

It is important to have an outline before starting to write. Spending a few minutes on the outline can be rewarding. An outline will organize your ideas and the end product can be much more coherent.

Here is how you can outline your writing so that you can produce a coherent essay:

• Start with the thesis statement – the sentence that summarizes the topic of your writing.
• Brainstorm the topic for a few minutes. Write down all the ideas related to the topic.
• Sift the ideas brainstormed in the previous step to identify only the ideas worth including in your essay.
• Organize ideas in a logical order so that your essay reflects the unified content that you want to communicate.
• Each idea has to be treated in a separate paragraph.
• Think of appropriate transitions between the different ideas.
• Under each idea/paragraph, write down enough details to support your idea.

After identifying and organizing your ideas into different paragraphs, they have to fit within the conventional structure of essays.

2. Structure your essay

It is also important to structure your essay so that you the reader can identify the organization of the different parts of your essay and how each paragraph leads to the next one.

Here is a structure of an essay

3. Structure your paragraphs

Paragraphs have to be well-organized. The structure of each paragraph should have:

• A topic sentence that is usually placed at the beginning,
• Supporting details that give further explanation of the topic sentence,
• And a concluding sentence that wraps up the content of the paragraph.

The supporting sentences in each paragraph must flow smoothly and logically to support the purpose of the topic sentence. Similarly, each paragraph has to serve the thesis statement, the main topic of the essay.

4. Relevance to the main topic

No matter how long the essay is, we should make sure that we stick to the topic we want to talk about. Coherence is about making everything flow smoothly to create unity. So, sentences and ideas must be relevant to the central thesis statement.

The writer has to maintain the flow of ideas to serve the main focus of the essay.

5. Stick to the purpose of the type of essay you’re-writing

Essays must be clear and serve a purpose and direction. This means that the writer’s thoughts must not go astray in developing the purpose of the essay.

Essays are of different types and have different purposes. Accordingly, students have to stick to the main purpose of each genre of writing.

• An expository essay aims to inform, describe, or explain a topic, using essential facts to teach the reader about a topic.
• A descriptive essay intends to transmit a detailed description of a person, event, experience, or object. The aim is to make the reader perceive what is being described.
• A narrative essay attempts to tell a story that has a purpose. Writers use storytelling techniques to communicate an experience or an event.
• In argumentative essays, writers present an objective analysis of the different arguments about a topic and provide an opinion or a conclusion of positive or negative implications. The aim is to persuade the reader of your point.

6. Use cohesive devices and signposting phrases

Sentences should be connected using appropriate cohesive devices as discussed above:

Cohesive devices such as conjunctions and transition words are essential in providing clarity to your essay. But we can add another layer of clarity to guide the reader throughout the essay by using signpost signals.

What is signposting in writing?

Signposting refers to the use of phrases or words that guide readers to understand the direction of your essay. An essay should take the reader on a journey throughout the argumentation or discussion. In that journey, the paragraphs are milestones. Using signpost signals assists the reader in identifying where you want to guide them. Signposts serve to predict what will happen, remind readers of where they are at important stages along the process, and show the direction of your essay.

Essay signposting phrases

The following are some phrases you can use to signpost your writing:

It should be noted though that using cohesive devices or signposting language may not automatically lead to a coherent text. Some texts can be highly cohesive but remain incoherent. Appropriate cohesion and signposting are essential to coherence but they are not enough. To be coherent, an essay has to follow, in addition to using appropriate cohesive devices, all the tips presented in this article.

7. Draft, revise, and edit

After preparing the ground for the essay, students produce their first draft. This is the first version of the essay. Other subsequent steps are required.

The next step is to revise the first draft to rearrange, add, or remove paragraphs, ideas, sentences, or words.

The questions that must be addressed are the following:

• Is the essay clear? Is it meaningful? Does it serve the thesis statement (the main topic)?
• Are there sufficient details to convey ideas?
• Are there any off-topic ideas that you have to do without?
• Have you included too much information? Does your writing stray off-topic?
• Do the ideas flow in a logical order?
• Have you used appropriate cohesive devices and transition words when needed?

Once the revision is done, it is high time for the editing stage. Editing involves proofreading and correcting mistakes in grammar and mechanics. Pay attention to:

• Verb tense.
• Subject-verb agreement.
• Sentence structure. Have you included a subject a verb and an object (if the verb is transitive.)
• Punctuation.
• Capitalization.

Coherent essays are identified by relevance to the thesis statement. The ideas and sentences of coherent essays flow smoothly. One can follow the ideas discussed without any problems. Lexical and grammatical cohesive devices are used to achieve coherence. However, these devices are not sufficient. To maintain relevance to the main focus of the text, there is a need for a whole process of collecting ideas, outlining, reviewing, and editing to create a coherent whole.

More writing lessons are here .

Related Pages:

• Figures of speech
• Articles about writing

Pasco-Hernando State College

• Unity and Coherence in Essays
• The Writing Process
• Paragraphs and Essays
• Proving the Thesis/Critical Thinking
• Appropriate Language

Test Yourself

• Essay Organization Quiz
• Sample Essay - Fairies
• Sample Essay - Modern Technology

Related Pages

• Proving the Thesis

Unity is the idea that all parts of the writing work to achieve the same goal: proving the thesis. Just as the content of a paragraph should focus on a topic sentence, the content of an essay must focus on the thesis.  The introduction paragraph introduces the thesis, the body paragraphs each have a proof point (topic sentence) with content that proves the thesis, and the concluding paragraph sums up the proof and restates the thesis. Extraneous information in any part of the essay which is not related to the thesis is distracting and takes away from the strength of proving the thesis.

An essay must have coherence. The sentences must flow smoothly and logically from one to the next as they support the purpose of  each paragraph in proving the thesis. .

Just as the last sentence in a paragraph must connect back to the topic sentence of the paragraph, the last paragraph of the essay should connect back to the thesis by reviewing the proof and restating the thesis.

Example of Essay with Problems of Unity and Coherence

Here is an example of a brief essay that includes a paragraph that  does not  support the thesis “Many people are changing their diets to be healthier.”

     People are concerned about pesticides, steroids, and antibiotics in the food they eat.  Many now shop for organic foods since they don’t have the pesticides used in conventionally grown food.  Meat from chicken and cows that are not given steroids or antibiotics are gaining in popularity even though they are much more expensive. More and more, people are eliminating pesticides, steroids, and antibiotics from their diets.

    Eating healthier also is beneficial to the environment since there are less pesticides poisoning the earth. Pesticides getting into the waterways is creating a problem with drinking water.  Historically, safe drinking water has been a problem. It is believed the Ancient Egyptians drank beer since the water was not safe to drink.  Brewing beer killed the harmful organisms and bacteria in the water from the Nile.

     There is a growing concern about eating genetically modified foods, and people are opting for non-GMO diets.  Some people say there are more allergic reactions and other health problems resulting from these foods.  Others are concerned because there are no long-term studies which clearly show no adverse health effects such as cancers or other illnesses. Avoiding GMO food is another way people are eating healthier food.

See how just one paragraph  can take away from the effectiveness of the essay in showing how people are changing to healthier food since the unity and coherence are affected.  There is no longer unity among all the paragraphs.  The thought pattern is disjointed and the essay loses its coherence.

Transitions and Logical Flow of Ideas

Transitions are words, groups of words, or sentences that connect one sentence to another or one paragraph to another.

They promote a logical flow from one idea to the next and overall unity and coherence.

While transitions are not needed in every sentence or at the end of every paragraph, they are missed when they are omitted since the flow of thoughts becomes disjointed or even confusing.

There are different types of transitions:

Time – before, after, during, in the meantime, nowadays

Space – over, around, under

Examples – for instance, one example is

Comparison – on the other hand, the opposing view

Consequence – as a result, subsequently

These are just a few examples.  The idea is to paint a clear, logical connection between sentences and between paragraphs.

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11 Unity & Coherence

Preserving unity.

Academic essays need unity, which means that all of the ideas in an essay need to relate to the thesis, and all of the ideas in a paragraph need to relate to the paragraph’s topic. It can be easy to get “off track” and start writing about an idea that is somewhat related to your main idea, but does not directly connect to your main point.

All of the sentences in a paragraph should stay “on track;” that is, they should connect to the topic. One way to preserve unity in a paragraph is to start with a topic sentence that shows the main idea of the paragraph. Then, make sure each sentence in the paragraph relates to that main idea.

If you find a sentence that goes off track, perhaps you need to start a separate paragraph to write more about that different idea. Each paragraph should generally have only one main idea.

As you pre-write and draft an essay, try to pause occasionally. Go back to the assignment prompt and re-read it to make sure you are staying on topic. Use the prompt to guide your essay; make sure you are addressing all of the questions. Do not just re-state the words in the prompt. Instead, respond to the questions with your own ideas, in your own words, and make sure everything connects to the prompt and your thesis.

Activity A ~ Finding Breaks in Unity

Consider the following paragraphs. Is there a topic sentence? If so, do all of the other sentences relate to the topic sentence? Can you find any sentences that don’t relate?

     The planned community of Columbia, Maryland, was designed as a city open to all, regardless of race, level of income, or religion. When Columbia began in 1967, many cities in the U.S. did not allow people of certain races to rent or buy homes. Its developer, James W. Rouse, wanted to build a new city that had fair and open housing options for everyone. HCC has a building named for James W. Rouse. Today, the city’s nearly 100,000 remain diverse, as shown by recent census data. *****

    College can be expensive and difficult. Critical thinking is a very important skill for college students to develop so that they can be successful in their careers. Employers look for graduates who can understand information, analyze data, and solve problems. They also want employees who can think creatively and communicate their ideas clearly. College students need to practice these skills in all of their classes so that they can demonstrate their abilities to potential employers. ***** Bananas are one of Americans’ favorite types of fruit. The Cavendish variety, grown in Central and South America, is the most commonly sold here in the U.S. Recent problems with a fungus called Panama disease (or TR4), however, have led to a shortage of Cavendish bananas. Similar problems occurred a few years ago in parts of Asia and the Middle East. Because the fungus kills the crop and contaminates the soil, scientists are concerned that the popular Cavendish banana could be completely eradicated. Bananas contain many nutrients, including potassium and Vitamin B6. *****

Whether you choose to include a topic sentence or not, all of the sentences in your paragraph need to relate to the one main idea of the paragraph.

Another way to think about unity in a paragraph is to imagine your family tree. Draw a quick sketch of your family tree in your notebook. If you were writing an essay about your family, you might write a paragraph about close family members first. Next, you might branch out into another paragraph to write about more distant relatives. You might even include a paragraph about very close family friends, or pets. Each paragraph would have just one main idea (immediate family, more distant relatives, close family friends), and every sentence in each paragraph would relate to that main idea.

Activity B ~ Preserving Unity in Your Own Writing

Examine a composition that you have written for this class. Do all of your paragraphs have unity? Can you find any sentences that don’t relate to the topic of each paragraph? Exchange papers with a partner to peer review.

Ensuring Coherence

There are several ways to create connections between ideas in your essay. Here are some suggestions:

1. Repeat key words and phrases. This can be a powerful way to make a point. Consider this excerpt from Rev. Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, in which he uses parallel structure :

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

2. Use synonyms , as in this example, where King uses both repetition (“Let freedom ring”) and synonyms (for “mountains”):

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

3. Use pronouns to refer to antecedents , as King does here; this can be more elegant than just repeating the key words and phrases:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

4. Use demonstratives ( this, that, these, those ) as adjectives or pronouns, as King does here:

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”…. This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.  

Questions to Ponder

Pause for a moment here to think about the examples above. Think about audience, purpose, and context of an academic essay. Would you use the techniques for coherence in the same way that Dr. King did in his speech, or would you use the techniques in a different way? Discuss with a small group.

5. Use transitions. Transition words and phrases will help you to make sure your essay has coherence. Also called signal words/phrases or signposts, these help to guide your readers.

Transitions connect your related ideas; they can also show your reader that you are starting a new topic, giving an example, adding information, explaining causes and effects, and so on. Using the correct transition word or phrase in a sentence can make your writing much clearer. Try the activity below to think of possible transitions.

Activity C ~ Transition Words & Phrases

With your partner, brainstorm a list of transition words and phrases for each of the categories below.

Can you think of other transition words and phrases? What other categories do they belong to?

After you have completed these activities with your partner, consult  Transition Words & Phrases ~ Useful Lists for more on compare/contrast, addition, cause/effect, and other transitions to try.

Activity D ~ Ensuring Coherence in Your Own Writing

Examine a composition that you have written for this class for coherence. Find and mark examples of places where you used repetition, synonyms, pronouns or demonstratives to build connections between ideas.

Underline your transition words and phrases. Did you use the strongest signal words? Can you find examples where you need to add a transition? Or, did you use too many transitions? Exchange papers with a partner to peer review.

Consult our chapter on Transitions for more inspiration on achieving coherence and cohesion in your writing. Challenge yourself to use some new transitions in your next composition.

Is this chapter:

…about right, but you would like more examples? –> Read “ Cohesion and Coherence ” from George Mason University’s Writing Center.

…too easy, or you would like more examples? –> Read “ ESL: Coherence and Cohesion ” from the Writing & Communication Center at the University of Washington/Bothell

Note: links open in new tabs.

King, Martin Luther, Jr. “I Have a Dream.” March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. 28 August 1963. Washington, D.C. Speech.

to start to do something different

short piece or sample, for example a direct quote in writing or a few measures of a musical composition

to think about

ENGLISH 087: Academic Advanced Writing Copyright © 2020 by Nancy Hutchison is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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• AWELU contents
• Writing at university
• Different kinds of student texts
• Understanding instructions and stylesheets
• Understanding essay/exam questions
• Peer review instructions
• Dealing with feedback
• Checklist for writers
• Research writing resources
• Administrative writing resources
• LU language policy
• Introduction
• What characterises academic writing?
• The heterogeneity of academic writing
• Three-part essays
• IMRaD essays
• How to get started on your response paper
• Student literature review
• Annotated bibliography
• Three versions of the RA
• Examples of specificity within disciplines
• Reviews (review articles and book reviews)
• Popular science writing
• Research posters
• Grant proposals
• Writing for Publication
• Salutations
• Structuring your email
• Direct and indirect approaches
• Useful email phrases
• Language tips for email writers
• Writing memos
• Meeting terminology
• The writing process
• Identifying your audience
• Using invention techniques
• Research question
• Thesis statement
• Developing reading strategies
• Taking notes
• Identifying language resources
• Choosing a writing tool
• Framing the text: Title and reference list
• Structure of the whole text
• Structuring the argument
• Structure of introductions
• Structure within sections of the text
• Structure within paragraphs
• Signposting the structure
• Using sources
• What needs to be revised?
• How to revise
• Many vs. much
• Other quantifiers
• Quantifiers in a table
• Miscellaneous quantifiers
• Adjectives and adverbs
• Capitalisation
• Sentence fragment
• Run-on sentences
• What or which?
• Singular noun phrases connected by "or"
• Singular noun phrases connected by "either/or"
• Connected singular and plural noun phrases
• Noun phrases conjoined by "and"
• Subjects containing "along with", "as well as", and "besides"
• Indefinite pronouns and agreement
• Sums of money and periods of time
• Words that indicate portions
• Uncountable nouns
• Dependent clauses and agreement
• Agreement with the right noun phrase
• Some important exceptions and words of advice
• Atypical nouns
• The major word classes
• The morphology of the major word classes
• Words and phrases
• Elements in the noun phrase
• Classes of nouns
• Determiners
• Elements in the verb phrase
• Classes of main verbs
• Auxiliary verbs
• Primary auxiliary verbs
• Modal auxiliary verbs
• Meanings of modal auxiliaries
• Marginal auxiliary verbs
• Time and tense
• Simple and progressive forms
• The perfect
• Active and passive voice
• Adjective phrases
• Adverb phrases
• Personal pronouns
• Dummy pronouns
• Possessive pronouns
• Interrogative pronouns
• Indefinite pronouns
• Quantifiers
• Prepositions and prepositional phrases
• More on adverbials
• The order of subjects and verbs
• Subject-Verb agreement
• Hyphen and dash
• English spelling rules
• Commonly confused words
• Differences between British and American spelling
• Vocabulary awareness
• Useful words and phrases
• Using abbreviations
• Register types
• Formal vs. informal
• DOs & DON'Ts
• General information on dictionary use
• Online dictionary resources
• What is a corpus?
• Examples of the usefulness of a corpus
• Using the World Wide Web as a corpus
• Online corpus resources
• Different kinds of sources
• The functions of references
• Paraphrasing
• Summarising
• Reference accuracy
• Reference management tools
• Different kinds of reference styles
• Style format
• Elements of the reference list
• Documentary note style
• Writing acknowledgements
• What is academic integrity?
• Academic integrity and writing
• Academic integrity at LU
• Different kinds of plagiarism
• Avoiding plagiarism
• About Awelu

• Start here AWELU contents Student writing resources Research writing resources Administrative writing resources LU language policy
• Genres Introduction The Nature of Academic Writing Student writing genres Writing in Academic Genres Writing for Publication Writing for Administrative Purposes
• Writing The writing process Pre-writing stage Writing stage Rewriting stage
• Language Introduction Common problems and how to avoid them Selective mini grammar Coherence Punctuation Spelling Focus on vocabulary Register and style Dictionaries Corpora - resources for writer autonomy References
• Referencing Introduction Different kinds of sources The functions of references How to give references Reference accuracy Reference management tools Using a reference style Quick guides to reference styles Writing acknowledgements
• Academic integrity What is academic integrity? Academic integrity and writing Academic integrity at LU Plagiarism
• Repeating key nouns
• Using consistent pronouns
• Using transition signals to link ideas
• Arranging your ideas in logical order

A list of linking words for different purposes (Björk & Räisänen 1997)

Connecting events in a text (hamp lyons & heasley 2006).

Hamp Lyons & Heasley (2006, p. 80)

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• What is academic writing?
• Academic Style
• What is the writing process?
• Understanding the title
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• Compare & contrast
• Cause & effect
• Problem-solution
• Classification
• Essay structure
• Introduction
• Literature review
• Book review
• Research proposal
• Thesis/dissertation

What is cohesion?

• Cohesion vs coherence

Transition signals

• What are references?
• In-text citations
• Reference sections
• Reporting verbs
• Band descriptors

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Cohesion How to make texts stick together

Cohesion and coherence are important features of academic writing. They are one of the features tested in exams of academic English, including the IELTS test and the TOEFL test . This page gives information on what cohesion is and how to achieve good cohesion. It also explains the difference between cohesion and coherence , and how to achieve good coherence. There is also an example essay to highlight the main features of cohesion mentioned in this section, as well as some exercises to help you practise.

For another look at the same content, check out YouTube or Youku , or the infographic .

It is important for the parts of a written text to be connected together. Another word for this is cohesion . This word comes from the verb cohere , which means 'to stick together'. Cohesion is therefore related to ensuring that the words and sentences you use stick together.

Good cohesion is achieved through the following five main methods, each of which is described in more detail below:

• repeated words/ideas
• reference words
• transition signals
• substitution

Two other ways in which cohesion is achieved in a text, which are covered less frequently in academic English courses, are shell nouns and thematic development . These are also considered below.

Repeated words/ideas

Check out the cohesion infographic »

One way to achieve cohesion is to repeat words, or to repeat ideas using different words (synonyms). Study the following example. Repeated words (or synonyms) are shown in bold.

Cohesion is an important feature of academic writing . It can help ensure that your writing coheres or 'sticks together', which will make it easier for the reader to follow the main ideas in your essay or report . You can achieve good cohesion by paying attention to five important features . The first of these is repeated words. The second key feature is reference words. The third one is transition signals. The fourth is substitution. The final important aspect is ellipsis.

In this example, the word cohesion is used several times, including as a verb ( coheres ). It is important, in academic writing, to avoid too much repetition, so using different word forms or synonyms is common. The word writing is also used several times, including the phrase essay or report , which is a synonym for writing . The words important features are also repeated, again using synonyms: key feature , important aspect .

Reference words

Reference words are words which are used to refer to something which is mentioned elsewhere in the text, usually in a preceding sentence. The most common type is pronouns, such as 'it' or 'this' or 'these'. Study the previous example again. This time, the reference words are shown in bold.

Cohesion is an important feature of academic writing. It can help ensure that your writing coheres or 'sticks together', which will make it easier for the reader to follow the main ideas in your essay or report. You can achieve good cohesion by paying attention to five important features. The first of these is repeated words. The second key feature is reference words. The third one is transition signals. The fourth is substitution. The final important aspect is ellipsis.

The words it , which and these are reference words. The first two of these, it and which , both refer to 'cohesion' used in the preceding sentence. The final example, these , refers to 'important features', again used in the sentence that precedes it.

Transition signals, also called cohesive devices or linking words, are words or phrases which show the relationship between ideas. There are many different types, the most common of which are explained in the next section on transition signals . Some examples of transition signals are:

• for example - used to give examples
• in contrast - used to show a contrasting or opposite idea
• first - used to show the first item in a list
• as a result - used to show a result or effect

Study the previous example again. This time, the transition signals are shown in bold. Here the transition signals simply give a list, relating to the five important features: first , second , third , fourth , and final .

Substitution

Substitution means using one or more words to replace (substitute) for one or more words used earlier in the text. Grammatically, it is similar to reference words, the main difference being that substitution is usually limited to the clause which follows the word(s) being substituted, whereas reference words can refer to something far back in the text. The most common words used for substitution are one , so , and auxiliary verbs such as do, have and be . The following is an example.

• Drinking alcohol before driving is illegal in many countries, since doing so can seriously impair one's ability to drive safely.

In this sentence, the phrase 'doing so' substitutes for the phrase 'drinking alcohol before driving' which appears at the beginning of the sentence.

Below is the example used throughout this section. There is just one example of substitution: the word one , which substitutes for the phrase 'important features'.

Ellipsis means leaving out one or more words, because the meaning is clear from the context. Ellipsis is sometimes called substitution by zero , since essentially one or more words are substituted with no word taking their place.

Below is the example passage again. There is one example of ellipsis: the phrase 'The fourth is', which means 'The fourth [important feature] is', so the words 'important feature' have been omitted.

Shell nouns

Shell nouns are abstract nouns which summarise the meaning of preceding or succeeding information. This summarising helps to generate cohesion. Shell nouns may also be called carrier nouns , signalling nouns , or anaphoric nouns . Examples are: approach, aspect, category, challenge, change, characteristics, class, difficulty, effect, event, fact, factor, feature, form, issue, manner, method, problem, process, purpose, reason, result, stage, subject, system, task, tendency, trend, and type . They are often used with pronouns 'this', 'these', 'that' or 'those', or with the definite article 'the'. For example:

• Virus transmission can be reduced via frequent washing of hands, use of face masks, and isolation of infected individuals. These methods , however, are not completely effective and transmission may still occur, especially among health workers who have close contact with infected individuals.
• An increasing number of overseas students are attending university in the UK. This trend has led to increased support networks for overseas students.

In the example passage used throughout this section, the word features serves as a shell noun, summarising the information later in the passage.

Cohesion is an important feature of academic writing. It can help ensure that your writing coheres or 'sticks together', which will make it easier for the reader to follow the main ideas in your essay or report. You can achieve good cohesion by paying attention to five important features . The first of these is repeated words. The second key feature is reference words. The third one is transition signals. The fourth is substitution. The final important aspect is ellipsis.

Thematic development

Cohesion can also be achieved by thematic development. The term theme refers to the first element of a sentence or clause. The development of the theme in the rest of the sentence is called the rheme . It is common for the rheme of one sentence to form the theme of the next sentence; this type of organisation is often referred to as given-to-new structure, and helps to make writing cohere.

Consider the following short passage, which is an extension of the first example above.

• Virus transmission can be reduced via frequent washing of hands, use of face masks, and isolation of infected individuals. These methods, however, are not completely effective and transmission may still occur, especially among health workers who have close contact with infected individuals. It is important for such health workers to pay particular attention to transmission methods and undergo regular screening.

Here we have the following pattern:

• Virus transmission [ theme ]
• can be reduced via frequent washing of hands, use of face masks, and isolation of infected individuals [ rheme ]
• These methods [ theme = rheme of preceding sentence ]
• are not completely effective and transmission may still occur, especially among health workers who have close contact with infected individuals [ rheme ]
• health workers [ theme, contained in rheme of preceding sentence ]
• [need to] to pay particular attention to transmission methods and undergo regular screening [ rheme ]

Cohesion vs. coherence

The words 'cohesion' and 'coherence' are often used together with a similar meaning, which relates to how a text joins together to make a unified whole. Although they are similar, they are not the same. Cohesion relates to the micro level of the text, i.e. the words and sentences and how they join together. Coherence , in contrast, relates to the organisation and connection of ideas and whether they can be understood by the reader, and as such is concerned with the macro level features of a text, such as topic sentences , thesis statement , the summary in the concluding paragraph (dealt with in the essay structure section), and other 'bigger' features including headings such as those used in reports .

Coherence can be improved by using an outline before writing (or a reverse outline , which is an outline written after the writing is finished), to check that the ideas are logical and well organised. Asking a peer to check the writing to see if it makes sense, i.e. peer feedback , is another way to help improve coherence in your writing.

Example essay

Below is an example essay. It is the one used in the persuasion essay section. Click on the different areas (in the shaded boxes to the right) to highlight the different cohesive aspects in this essay, i.e. repeated words/ideas, reference words, transition signals, substitution and ellipsis.

Title: Consider whether human activity has made the world a better place.

History shows that human beings have come a long way from where they started. They have developed new technologies which means that everybody can enjoy luxuries they never previously imagined. However , the technologies that are temporarily making this world a better place to live could well prove to be an ultimate disaster due to , among other things, the creation of nuclear weapons , increasing pollution , and loss of animal species . The biggest threat to the earth caused by modern human activity comes from the creation of nuclear weapons . Although it cannot be denied that countries have to defend themselves, the kind of weapons that some of them currently possess are far in excess of what is needed for defence . If these [nuclear] weapons were used, they could lead to the destruction of the entire planet . Another harm caused by human activity to this earth is pollution . People have become reliant on modern technology, which can have adverse effects on the environment . For example , reliance on cars causes air and noise pollution . Even seemingly innocent devices, such as computers and mobile phones, use electricity, most of which is produced from coal-burning power stations, which further adds to environmental pollution . If we do not curb our direct and indirect use of fossil fuels, the harm to the environment may be catastrophic. Animals are an important feature of this earth and the past decades have witnessed the extinction of a considerable number of animal species . This is the consequence of human encroachment on wildlife habitats, for example deforestation to expand cities. Some may argue that such loss of [animal]   species is natural and has occurred throughout earth's history. However , the current rate of [animal]   species loss far exceeds normal levels   [of animal species loss] , and is threatening to become a mass extinction event. In summary , there is no doubt that current human activities such as the creation of nuclear weapons , pollution , and destruction of wildlife , are harmful to the earth . It is important for us to see not only the short-term effects of our actions, but their long-term ones as well. Otherwise , human activities will be just another step towards destruction .

Aktas, R.N. and Cortes, V. (2008), 'Shell nouns as cohesive devices in published and ESL student writing', Journal of English for Academic Purposes , 7 (2008) 3-14.

Alexander, O., Argent, S. and Spencer, J. (2008) EAP Essentials: A teacher's guide to principles and practice . Reading: Garnet Publishing Ltd.

Gray, B. (2010) 'On the use of demonstrative pronouns and determiners as cohesive devices: A focus on sentence-initial this/these in academic prose', Journal of English for Academic Purposes , 9 (2010) 167-183.

Halliday, M. A. K., and Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English . London: Longman.

Hinkel, E. (2004). Teaching Academic ESL Writing: Practical Techniques in Vocabulary and Grammar . Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc Publishers.

Hyland, K. (2006) English for Academic Purposes: An advanced resource book . Abingdon: Routledge.

Thornbury, S. (2005) Beyond the Sentence: Introducing discourse analysis . Oxford: Macmillan Education.

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Below is a checklist for essay cohesion and coherence. Use it to check your own writing, or get a peer (another student) to help you.

Next section

Find out more about transition signals in the next section.

• Transitions

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Go back to the previous section about paraphrasing .

• Paraphrasing

Exercises & Activities Some ways to practise this area of EAP

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Author: Sheldon Smith    ‖    Last modified: 03 February 2022.

Sheldon Smith is the founder and editor of EAPFoundation.com. He has been teaching English for Academic Purposes since 2004. Find out more about him in the about section and connect with him on Twitter , Facebook and LinkedIn .

Compare & contrast essays examine the similarities of two or more objects, and the differences.

Cause & effect essays consider the reasons (or causes) for something, then discuss the results (or effects).

Discussion essays require you to examine both sides of a situation and to conclude by saying which side you favour.

Problem-solution essays are a sub-type of SPSE essays (Situation, Problem, Solution, Evaluation).

Transition signals are useful in achieving good cohesion and coherence in your writing.

Reporting verbs are used to link your in-text citations to the information cited.

Coherence in Composition

Guiding the Reader to Understand a Piece of Writing or Speech

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

In composition , coherence refers to the meaningful connections that readers or listeners perceive in a written or oral text , often called linguistic or discourse coherence, and can occur on either the local or global level, depending on the audience and writer.

Coherence is directly increased by the amount of guidance a writer provides to the reader, either through context clues or through direct use of transitional phrases to direct the reader through an argument or narrative.

Word choice and sentence and paragraph structure influence the coherence of a written or spoken piece, but cultural knowledge, or understanding of the processes and natural orders on the local and global levels, can also serve as cohesive elements of writing. 

Guiding the Reader

It is important in composition to maintain the coherence of a piece by leading the reader or listener through the narrative or process by providing cohesive elements to the form. In "Marking Discourse Coherence," Uta Lenk states that the reader or listener's understanding of coherence "is influenced by the degree and kind of guidance given by the speaker: the more guidance is given, the easier it is for the hearer to establish the coherence according to the speaker's intentions."

Transitional words and phrases  like "therefore," "as a result," "because" and the like serve to move connect one posit to the next, either through cause and effect or correlation of data, while other transitional elements like combining and connecting sentences or repetition of keywords and structures can similarly guide the reader to make connections in tandem with their cultural knowledge of the topic.

Thomas S. Kane describes this cohesive element as "flow" in "The New Oxford Guide to Writing," wherein these "invisible links which bind the sentences of a paragraph can be established in two basic ways." The first, he says, is to establish a plan in the first of the paragraph and introduce each new idea with a word marking its place in this plan while the second concentrates on the successive linking of sentences to develop the plan through connecting each sentence to the one before it.

Constructing Coherence Relations

Coherence in composition and constructionist theory relies on a readers' local and global understanding of the written and spoken language, inferring the binding elements of text that help guide them through understanding the author's intentions. 

As Arthur C. Graesser, Peter Wiemer-Hasting and Katka Wiener-Hastings put it in "constructing Inferences and Relations During Text Comprehension," local coherence "is achieved if the reader can connect the incoming sentence to information in the previous sentence or to the content in working memory." On the other hand, global coherence comes from the major message or point of the structure of the sentence or from an earlier statement in the text. 

If not driven by these global or local understanding, the sentence is typically given coherence by explicit features like anaphoric references, connectives, predicates, signaling devices and transitional phrases. 

In any case, coherence is a mental process and the Coherence Principle accounts for "the fact that we do not communicate by verbal means only," according to Edda Weigand's "Language as Dialogue: From Rules to Principles." Ultimately, then, it comes down to the listener or leader's own comprehension skills, their interaction with the text, that influences the true coherence of a piece of writing.

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• Making Inferences to Improve Reading Comprehension
• Paragraph Transition: Definition and Examples
• What Is Textuality?
• Definition and Examples of Text Linguistics
• AP English Exam: 101 Key Terms
• Definition and Examples of Paragraphing in Essays
• The Drafting Stage of the Writing Process
• Unity in Composition
• Ways of Achieving Emphasis in Writing and in Speech
• Understanding the Use of Language Through Discourse Analysis

Paragraph Unity, Coherence, and Development

In each paragraph of an essay, one particular idea or topic is developed and explained. In order to successfully do so, however, it is essential that the paragraph be written in a unified and coherent manner. 

A unified paragraph must follow the idea mentioned in the topic sentence and must not deviate from it. For a further explanation on topic sentences, see the Write Right on Topic Sentences .

A coherent paragraph has sentences that all logically follow each other; they are not isolated thoughts. Coherence can be achieved in several ways. First, using transitions helps connect ideas from one sentence to the next. For more on transitions, see the Write Right on Transitions . Second, ordering thoughts in numerical sequence helps to direct the reader from one point to the next. Third, structuring each paragraph according to one of the following patterns helps to organize sentences: general to particular; particular to general; whole to parts; question to answer; or effect to cause. 

Remember that a paragraph should have enough sentences so that the main idea of the topic sentence is completely developed. Generalizations should be supported with examples or illustrations. Also, details and descriptions help the reader to understand what you mean. Don't ever assume that the reader can read your mind: be specific enough to develop your ideas thoroughly, but avoid repetition

An effective paragraph might look like this:

It is commonly recognized that dogs have an extreme antagonism toward cats. This enmity between these two species can be traced back to the time of the early Egyptian dynasties. Archaeologists in recent years have discovered Egyptian texts in which there are detailed accounts of canines brutally mauling felines. Today this type of cruelty between these two domestic pets can be witnessed in regions as close as your own neighborhood. For example, when dogs are walked by their masters (and they happen to catch sight of a stray cat), they will pull with all their strength on their leash until the master is forced to yield; the typical result is that a feline is chased up a tree. The hatred between dogs and cats has lasted for many centuries, so it is unlikely that this conflict will ever end.

This paragraph is effective for the following reasons:

• The paragraph shows unity. All the sentences effectively relate back to the topic sentence at the beginning of the paragraph. 
• The paragraph shows coherence. There is a flow of thoughts and ideas among the sentences in this paragraph. There are good transitions employed in the paragraph. The writer also presents her sub-topics in an orderly fashion that the reader can follow easily.
• The paragraph is developed. The writer gives herself enough space to develop the topic. She gives us at least two reasons to accept her argument and incorporates some examples in order to give those reasons more validity.

Reference: Strunk, Wiliam Jr., and E. B. White. The Elements of Style . 4th ed., Allyn and Bacon, 2000.

Copyright © 2009 Wheaton College Writing Center

Unit 8: Academic Writing Resources

51 Transition Words for Cohesion and Coherence

Transition words and phrases.

Transition words and phrases are used to connect ideas together. They are used within paragraphs and between paragraphs to enhance the flow of ideas.

Below are some common expressions. Some are useful for connecting paragraphs while others are more appropriate for joining ideas within a sentence. The best way to learn which transition words can be used for which purposes is to pay attention to the way they are used in the texts you read.

Transition words in any given category are NOT synonyms, and often require different grammatical structures. Choose exactly the best word for your purposes (don’t just substitute). Use the Skell Corpus to check how these expressions are used in example sentences.

Additive Transitions

Function: to connect two ideas together by adding additional information

furthermore, moreover, in addition, also

admittedly, certainly, typically

in fact, indeed

first, second, third

Order of Importance Transitions

Function: to signal the importance of events

above all, first and foremost, more/most

importantly, significantly, primarily

a more important, the most important, the primary / main, the second most significant

Contrastive Transitions

Function: to signal a contradiction or difference

however, nevertheless, in contrast, on the other hand

although, even though, whereas, while

despite, in spite of, compared to/with

Comparative Transitions

Function: to emphasize similarity

likewise, similarly, at the same time

by comparison, in much the same way, once again

Cause and Effect Transitions

Function: to signal that one event happens as a result of another

as a result / consequence, consequently, therefore / thus, for this reason

because, since

due to, be the result of, given that

Giving Examples

Function: to introduce an illustration or example

for example, for instance, to illustrate

specifically, in particular, that is

such as, an example of

Conclusion Transitions

Function: to signal a final summary of ideas

to summarize, in summary, in short, in sum

in conclusion, to conclude

accordingly, ultimately

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• Transcription

For the purposes of what follows and for ease of exemplification, we will focus on written texts.  Don't, however, lose sight of the fact that these features occur frequently in spoken discourse, too.

Consider these two exchanges:

Two questions: 1. Are these both comprehensible? 2. What's the difference in making them comprehensible? Click here when you have an answer .

Yes, they are both comprehensible to the speakers but only the first one is fully comprehensible (or comprehensible at all) to an outsider. The difference is that:

• I n the first dialogue it is clear that He refers to John so the conversation is cohesive.
• In the second dialogue, there is no cohesion but if both people know that it is John's job to cut the grass (or go and telephone the gardener, of whatever), then the answer could mean the same.  In fact, it could contain more information because the hearer might well know not just where John is but what he is doing.

The second dialogue is coherent (it makes sense) but not cohesive . The first dialogue is both coherent and cohesive. Written texts, of course, need to exhibit greater cohesion because the writer and reader may not share information and may not be in the same place at the same time so the reader cannot infer meaning from context. What follows concerns cohesion.  If you want to look at written coherence, try the guide to genre, linked below especially the part concerning theme-rheme structures in texts (opens in a new tab).

In the first dialogue, above, you saw that the pronoun he referred back to the name of the person, John .  That is known as anaphoric reference .  It means referring back to something already mentioned.

There are other sorts of referencing which can be set out like this:

Can you identify the four main sorts of referencing in this short email?

Hi, Thanks for that.  It's going to help, I think. By the way, I'm going to take the kids out next Monday and wondered if you wanted to come.  It'll be a long drive for them but when we get there, I'll bet they'll love Chessington Zoo. Let me know if you can make it. Cheers

Click here when you have identified one example of each type of referencing .

• In the first line, there are two exophoric references to it and that .  It isn't possible to know what these refer to unless you are party to the conversation.
• Arguably, the kids is another example of the same thing as the definite article is usually used to refer to already given information.  In this case, the writer is assuming that the reader knows the kids in question.
• It in It'll be a long way refers anaphorically to taking the kids out.
• them and they later also refer anaphorically to the kids .  The kids have already been mentioned in the text so these two references are endophoric as well.
• Finally, there refers cataphorically to Chessington Zoo and is also endophoric.

There is an additional type of exophoric referencing, not exemplified here, which is called homophoric .  It occurs when reference is to something outside the text and relies on the hearer / writer's knowledge of the cultural or social setting for its understanding.  So for example:     We're going to the zoo will be understood in many cultural, national or regional settings to refer only to a particular zoo known to both parties to the exchange, regardless of the fact that there are many zoos in the world.

The following draws heavily on Halliday and Hasan (1976) as does much else in this area of study. We'll take each of the categories they identified and exemplify them with short written or spoken texts.

Most of the examples above are, or could be, in spoken texts so now, to balance things, we'll turn to a written text.

For this section, you need to download the sample text which is used to exemplify the discussion.  Save / print the text or have it open in a new tab to refer to as we go along.

This is not a complete analysis of the text but in the following table, the key types of referencing and examples from the text are identified.

Notice, too, the expression in the same boat (line 27) which substitutes for almost everything in the letter.

This guide is about cohesion and mostly focuses on the ways in which it is achieved via referencing and connective devices. There is, however, an additional lexical trick in most languages through which entire texts and sets of propositions can be effectively linked through the use of shell nouns. These are discussed at a greater level of detail in the guide to them, linked below, so here we will just cite more or less what is said in the guide to nouns in general to give you a flavour of how they operate to increase internal cohesion in texts. Briefly, what shell nouns do is to encapsulate ideas in a way that makes the noun itself the shell for a set of propositions.  For example in:

The problem is that too many vehicles use the new bypass causing congestion at peak times so the aim is to limit the traffic by improving and extending alternative routes through the suburbs.

we have two shell nouns, problem and aim which respectively encapsulate the propositions of identifying an issue and seeking a solution. The shell noun is usually followed by the proposition that it encapsulates linked either with a that- clause ( problem ) or just a simple copula such as be ( aim ). Shell nouns fall into recognisable categories which are explained and exemplified in the guide to them.  They include, for example, nouns such as:

ability, advantage, aim, aspect, belief, capacity, context, danger, difference, doubt, drawback, effort, event, fact, idea, knowledge, mistake, mystery, need, opportunity, part, permission, place, plan, position, possibility, priority, problem, problem, procedure, proof, question, reality, reason, result, sign, similarity, situation, situation, solution, struggle, theory, time, trouble, truth, view, way, worry

The use of shell nouns is particularly common is some kinds of academic texts in which the author is concerned to set up a series of propositions under an overall heading of, e.g., reason, problem, theory, outcome, necessity and so on. In terms of cohesion, you can see the efficacy of using shell nouns by comparing these two short texts:

• People in the organisation are spending too much duplicating work that is being done in other departments leading to unfocused activity and often to internal contradictions.  This must be addressed by setting out clearer definitions of people's roles.  It can be tackled in one of three ways ...
• People in the organisation are spending too much duplicating work that is being done in other departments leading to unfocused activity and often to internal contradictions.  This wasteful duplication must be addressed by setting out clearer definitions of people's roles.  It can be tackled in one of three ways ...

It should be clear that in the second version, the issue is discussed within a noun shell, the expression wasteful duplication , which is quite specific and more carefully defined than it would be with the use of a more generalised shell noun such as problem . In the first version, the use of it in the final sentence is potentially confusing because the reader is left to surmise what the referent might be.  In the second version, because we have a shell noun, it is quite clear what it refers to: wasteful duplication . That means that the writer can thereafter refer to the whole set of propositions with a simple pronouns, this, that or it , used to refer to the wasteful duplication rather than vaguely pointing at something in the text. It also means that the text hangs together much more successfully because the reader is aware of exactly what is being discussed.  In other words, cohesion is achieved. If you would like a list of potential shell nouns, click here .

You may find all of the above referred to as discourse markers and some of them are.  However, properly understood, the term discourse marker applies to an item used to manage spoken interaction so things like:     Yes, I see your point but ...     Well, for a start ...     Do you see? etc. are discourse markers which contribute to coherent exchanges. On this site, we avoid the term discourse marker except in this narrower sense and prefer cohesive device for the items we are concerned with in this guide.

There are three ways that article use contributes to cohesion and referencing.

• The first time a noun is mentioned, it is usually preceded (if it is countable) by the indefinite article.  The second time by the definite article, signalling to the reader / hearer that the reference is to a known item.  For example,     A strange car was parked outside my house.  It's difficult to find a parking space in my street so I hoped the car wouldn't be there later. In that example, the use of the car later signals that it is a known entity and refers to the same car.
• Note however, that we can use the definite article to signal the only possible entity as in, e.g.:     A car drew up and the driver got out. In this case, the definite article signals to the reader / hearer that it is the driver of a particular car, not just any driver. Consider the oddness of:     A car drew up and a driver got out but the acceptability of:     A car drew up and a passenger got out
• The definite article may also refer to something outside the text which is known to both speaker / writer and reader / hearer because they share a common cultural or social milieu.  For example,     The minister has replied to our letter Now, minister can mean a politician or a member of the clergy and there are probably many thousands of them around the world.  It is clear, however, from the use of the definite article that a particular minister, known to both participants in the discourse, is meant here. Another example, of what is called homophoric reference is to entities such as the government, the Queen, the President, the Czar etc. when knowledge of the culture precludes any other meaning. Exophoric referencing cannot, technically, be called cohesive because it does not connect items in the text.  It is, however, a potential barrier to understanding and makes the text coherent.

Mention is briefly made above to theme-rheme structures and here's a little more on that, erm, theme. There are three types of theme that contribute to cohesion in texts, whether written or spoken:

• Topical themes are the most familiar and concern us in what follows.  They refer to the subject of the verb usually so in, for example:     The washing machine in the basement has broken down the noun phrase The washing machine in the basement is the topical theme and the rest of the sentence constitutes the rheme. The topical theme is not always the subject of the verb, however, so we can also have, e.g., with the topical themes highlighted :     It was John she gave the money to     The clothes have been washed     Money , that's what we need Topical themes are often fronted but may be post-positioned as in the first of those examples.
• Textual themes serve directly to link items together and in this guide we have been referring to them as conjunctions and conjuncts.  Additionally, wh- words can form textual themes.  The textual themes are highlighted in these examples:     Mary spoke to him as soon as she arrived.     He was, however , not really listening     Why was that?
• Interpersonal themes concern the interactions between speakers (usually) and signal the speaker's opinions and viewpoints.  They are highlighted in these examples:     She might get upset     I think she's going to In most cases, interpersonal themes do not contribute specifically to cohesion but they are powerful drivers of coherence in texts.

This is important because, although we may know what forms of cohesion there are in English, unless we know what to connect with what, the picture is incomplete and the knowledge is unused (and useless).  The analysis of theme-rheme structures allows us to identify where and to what references should be made, in other words.

There is a separate guide to theme-rheme structures on this site, linked below, where you should go for more detail but, briefly, the theme is the jumping off point for the clause and what follows it is the rheme.  That rheme often forms the theme of the next clause with a new rheme which, in turn forms the theme of a subsequent clause.  The structure of this form of cohesion can be exemplified like this:

Mary came to the party and she brought her brother.  He turned out to be an interesting person because he worked in television with some quite famous people.  They included some of my favourite personalities.

In which we have:

• The first theme ( Mary ) with its rheme ( came to the party ) and then the theme repeated, with linking additive coordination ( and ) and pronoun substitution ( she ) with a new rheme brought her brother .
• That rheme forms the theme of the next clause ( turned out to be an interesting person ) which is connected by subordination ( because ) with the next pronoun substitution ( he ) with its rheme ( worked in television with some quite famous people ).
• That rheme becomes the next theme ( they ) which has the rheme included some of my favourite personalities .

The moral is that teaching people how to make texts cohesive without teaching what items need cohesive links is a waste of valuable time.

Of course there's a test .

Re ference: Nothing in this area is complete without reference to Halliday MAK & Hasan R, 1976, Cohesion in English, Harlow : Longman

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Definition of coherence

• orchestration

Examples of coherence in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'coherence.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

coher(ent) + -ence , after Latin cohaerentia

circa 1580, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Dictionary Entries Near coherence

coherence theory

Cite this Entry

“Coherence.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coherence. Accessed 29 Apr. 2024.

More from Merriam-Webster on coherence

Nglish: Translation of coherence for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of coherence for Arabic Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about coherence

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Coherence Based Automatic Essay Scoring Using Sentence Embedding and Recurrent Neural Networks

• Conference paper
• First Online: 10 November 2022
• Cite this conference paper

• Dadi Ramesh 11 &
• Suresh Kumar Sanampudi 12  

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 13721))

Included in the following conference series:

• International Conference on Speech and Computer

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Automatic essay scoring (AES) is an essential educational application using natural language processing and deep learning. However, enacting advanced deep learning models and natural language processing has improved AES systems' accuracy and performance. Though the current AES systems failed in certain areas like content-based assessment, the models are not tested on adversarial responses and giving feedback on the essay. In this paper, we proposed a sentence-based embedding to capture text's coherence and cohesion into a vector. Then, we trained these vectors on LSTM and Bi-LSTM to find the sentence connectivity internally and externally to check the sentence framing, its association with other sentences, and its relevance to the prompt. Finally, we tested our trained model on different adversarial responses and observed decent outcomes. We used two different data sets: one is the standard ASAP Kaggle dataset, and another is a collection of responses from the operating system domain.

The result shows that the LSTM model outperformed with baseline model quadratic weighted Kappa (QWK) by 0.76. Moreover, the testing on adversarial responses enhances the efficiency of the proposed model in different domains.

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Computer Science and Engineering, S R Engineering College, Warangal, India

Dadi Ramesh

Department of Information Technology, JNTUH College of Engineering Jagitial, Nachupally (Kondagattu), Jagtial Dist, Telangana, India

Suresh Kumar Sanampudi

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St. Petersburg Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia

Alexey Karpov

Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, Vaddeswaram, India

K. Samudravijaya

KIIT Group of Colleges, Gurugram, India

Shyam S. Agrawal

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Ramesh, D., Sanampudi, S.K. (2022). Coherence Based Automatic Essay Scoring Using Sentence Embedding and Recurrent Neural Networks. In: Prasanna, S.R.M., Karpov, A., Samudravijaya, K., Agrawal, S.S. (eds) Speech and Computer. SPECOM 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13721. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20980-2_13

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