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Coherence and UnityCoherence refers to a certain
characteristic or aspect of writing. Literally, the word means "to stick
together." Coherence in writing means that all the ideas in a paragraph
flow smoothly from one sentence to the next sentence. With coherence,
the reader has an easy time understanding the ideas that you wish to
express.
Consider the paragraph that we studied in Lesson #1:
| My hometown is famous for several amazing natural
features. First, it is noted for the Wheaton River,
which is very wide and beautiful. On either side of this
river, which is 175 feet wide, are many willow trees which
have long branches that can move gracefully in the wind. In
autumn the leaves of these trees fall and cover the
riverbanks like golden snow. Second, on the other side
of the town is Wheaton Hill, which is unusual because it is very
steep. Even though it is steep, climbing this hill is
not dangerous, because there are some firm rocks along the sides
that can be used as stairs. There are no trees around this
hill, so it stands clearly against the sky and can be seen from
many miles away. The third amazing feature is the Big
Old Tree. This tree stands two hundred feet tall and is probably
about six hundred years old. These three landmarks are
truly amazing and make my hometown a famous place. |
Major Connectors
Look at the words in bold font. Do you see how they help guide
the reader? For example, consider the words, First, Second, and
The third amazing feature. We can call these words major
connectors. Major connectors help organize the main parts of your
paragraph. This paragraph has three main parts: (1) a part about the
Wheaton River, (2) a part about Wheaton Hill, and (3) a part about the
Big Old Tree. Another way of saying this is that this paragraph has
three main points which are indicated by the major connectors.
Using such major connectors is an important way of providing coherence
in a paragraph.
Minor Connectors
What about the other words in bold, such as those appearing in
the phrases "these trees" and "this hill"? We can call
these minor connectors. Minor connectors provide coherence to a
paragraph by connecting sentences within each of the main parts
of your paragraph. That is, when you write about your main points, you
can use minor connectors to link your details to each main point.
Now, look at this paragraph. Can you identify the main points?
| Each of the U.S. manned space exploration projects had
specific major goals. The Mercury project was designed to test
whether or not human beings could survive and function in outer
space. The Mercury project tested rockets with the new Mercury
space capsule, which could hold one person. The Gemini project
was intended to find out whether two people could work in the
weightless environment of space. Gemini astronauts took
"spacewalks." They floated outside their spacecraft in a
spacesuit, connected to it by a tether. Gemini astronauts tried
out new flying skills. Some astronauts flew two spacecraft
extremely close together; this procedure was called
"rendezvous." On some Gemini flights, astronauts physically
linked two spacecraft together. Linking, or "space docking," was
a major goal of the Gemini program. The Apollo project, with
three astronauts, was intended to test spacecraft and skills so
that people could actually fly to the Moon and land on it.
Performing scientific experiments on the lunar surface and
collecting rocks for study on Earth were goals. |
Was this paragraph a little confusing to read? Now consider the same
paragraph with a few changes:
| Each of the U.S. manned space exploration projects had
specific major goals. For example, the Mercury project
was designed to test whether or not human beings could survive
and function in outer space. In addition, the Mercury
project tested rockets with the new Mercury space capsule, which
could hold one person. As another example, the Gemini
project was intended to find out whether two people could work
in the weightless environment of space. One way of doing this
was by having Gemini astronauts take "spacewalks." That is,
they floated outside their spacecraft in a spacesuit, connected
to it by a tether. Gemini astronauts alsotried out new
flying skills. For example, some astronauts flew two
spacecraft extremely close together; this procedure was called
"rendezvous." On some Gemini flights, astronauts physically
linked two spacecraft together. This linking, or "space
docking," was a major goal of the Gemini program. Finally,
the Apollo project, with three astronauts, had the goal of
testing spacecraft and skills so that people could actually fly
to the Moon and land on it. Other goals included
performing scientific experiments on the lunar surface and
collecting rocks for study on Earth. |
Do you see which of the connectors above are major and which are
minor? The major ones are For example in the second
sentence, which introduces the first supporting point (the Mercury
program); As another example, which begins the second main point
(the Gemini program); and the word Finally, which introduces the
third and last main point (the Apollo moon program). (In the paragraph
above, all of the major connectors are underlined.)
As for the minor connectors, we can divide them into three
groups. The first group of minor connectors provides coherence for the
first main point (the Mercury program). There is only one minor
connector in this first group, In addition, although it is
possible to have more than one, depending on how many details you have
to support your first main point.
The second group of minor connectors consists of That is, also,
and also the phrase For example in the sentence, "For example,
some astronauts..." Notice that this last minor connector is the same
as the major connector at the beginning of the paragraph. However, the
function of each is different, depending on the meaning of the
sentences.
The third group of minor connectors in this particular paragraph also
has one member, which is Other goals included....
Here is a table of a few common connectors (also called transitions):
For example,
For instance,
One example of (this) is
First, Second, Third, etc.
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As another example,
Another example of [xxx] is (that)
Finally,
In conclusion,
To summarize,
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On the one hand,
On the other hand,
However,
..., but...
also
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Paragraph Unity
Unity is a very important characteristic of good paragraph
writing. Paragraph unity means that one paragraph is about ONLY ONE main
topic. That is, all the sentences -- the topic, supporting sentences,
the detail sentences, and (sometimes) the concluding sentence -- are all
telling the reader about ONE main topic. If your paragraph contains a
sentence or some sentences that are NOT related to the main topic, then
we say that the paragraph "lacks unity," or that the sentence is
"off-topic."
Look at the following paragraph, which is similar to the paragraph
that we have studied above. Does it have perfect unity? Try to find the
sentence that is off-topic:
| Each of the Russian manned space exploration projects
had specific major goals. For example, the Vostok project was
designed to test whether or not human beings could survive and
function in outer space. For another example, the Voshkhod
project was intended to find out whether people could work in
the weightless environment of space. One Voshkhod cosmonaut
experimented with weightlessness by taking a "spacewalk." That
is, he floated in a spacesuit outside his Voshkhod spacecraft,
connected to it by a tether. The cosmonaut to do this was Alexei
Leonov. Several weeks later, Leonov's spacewalk was followed by
that of U.S. astronaut Ed White. Finally, the Soyuz project,
with three cosmonauts, had goals of testing spacecraft and
spaceflight skills so that people could fly long missions in
Earth orbit. |
This paragraph is generally good, but the sentence, Several weeks
later, Leonov's spacewalk was followed by that of U.S. astronaut Ed
White, does not have anything to do with the major goals of the
various Russian space projects. That is, it is an "off-topic" sentence,
so we can say that the paragraph somewhat lacks unity. In order to
improve the paragraph, we should omit this sentence, even though it is
historically accurate.
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Paragraph Structure |
