COHERENCE IN WRITING Sir Hector Atondo OBJECTIVES At the end of the lesson, the students will be able to: • Describe coherence in writing • Edit a text based on coherence POINT IT OUT! 3 Point out the problems with the text below. A lot of people want to own their own homes, but owning can be expensive and stressful. Repairs can be costly, and you need to come up with a down payment. Repair companies can be unreliable. Our teenaged babysitter is pretty unreliable, too. All told, home ownership can be worrisome and costly. Property taxes are another hidden expense. COHERENCE 4 Coherence means that all sentences in the paragraph relate to each other and flow logically from one to the next. Two key aspects of coherence Unity: This relates to the question of relevance and maintaining the central focus of a single paragraph and throughout the essay. A paragraph has unity when the support sentences contribute to a greater understanding of the point made at the beginning of the paragraph. Cohesion: This relates to the linking of ideas within a sentence, the linking of sentences (the ties between sentences) within a paragraph and the linking between paragraphs. This is achieved through the use cohesive devices. MAINTAINING COHERENCE 5 If a paragraph lacks unity and coherence, you should do the following: • remove any sentence that does not support the topic sentence • rewrite the paragraph by adding details that do support the topic sentence • rearrange the order of some sentences within the paragraph or move them to another paragraph CORRECTED VERSION 6 A lot of people want to own their own homes, but owning can be expensive and stressful. First, you need to come up with a down payment. Repairs can be costly, and repair companies can be unreliable. Property taxes are another hidden expense. All told, home ownership can be worrisome and costly UNITY IN COHERENCE 7 In paragraph A-C, each paragraph may have a sentence that doesn't belong; select the number of the sentence that can be removed. If no sentence should be removed, select 5. UNITY IN COHERENCE A. (1)Dolores must learn to be more assertive in her job. (2)She always lets people tell her what to do. (3) She earns a decent salary. (4) For this reason, she has earned the nickname "Dolores the Doormat." (5) no sentence needs to be removed 8 UNITY IN COHERENCE 9 B. (1) Chicago's weather is unpredictable. (2) Within a week, temperatures may vary by as much as forty degrees. (3) Sometimes, the wind will shift and the temperature will drop twenty degrees in an hour. (4) People always say that if you don't like Chicago weather, wait a day and it will change. (5) no sentence needs to be UNITY IN COHERENCE 10 C. (1) All young children should be vaccinated against whooping cough. (2) Another name for the disease is pertussis. (3) The disease is bacterial in nature, causing a peculiar-sounding cough. (4) You should avoid coughing on other people because it is extremely contagious. (5) no sentence needs to be removed BE AN EDITOR! 1.Which revision should be made to the first paragraph? 2.Which revision should be made to the second paragraph? 3.Which revision should be made to Sentence 12? 4.Which revision should be made to Sentence 13? 11 THANK YOU!
