OK so what we're going to be talking about in these next three lectures are the three C's cohesion coherence
and concise.
These are the big three C's that you need to know how to do well in order to score at a high mark on
the writing section cohesive cohesive writing is is something that graders really really appreciate.
Coherence is something that's expected in writing concisely is a high level English skill is extremely
impressive.
So if you can really work on mastering these three general English skills is going to definitely help
your exam score.
OK so let's take a look at it.
So first up we're going to talk about what is cohesive writing and then after cohesive writing will
move into coherence and after that we'll talk about concise writing.
So cohesion when you talk about the heat cohesion we're talking about the grammatical aspects of writing
is extremely extremely important because cohesion affects the tone of your writing.
Right.
It deals with the connection of your ideas at the sentence in paragraph level.
So when you have really really good cohesion that's something that brings everything together so your
ideas are linked together and you're using language just helping you to be able to answer the question
directly and clearly throughout the entire essay.
So cohesion is and a very important group of very important writing skill that students need to know
how to do well a text will have cohesion.
The F is clearly organized right.
So sometimes I can spot an essay that's going to lack cohesion when I see a bad thesis statement when
I see a bad thesis statement or I see I like a general thesis statement.
There's not that doesn't have any specificity at all.
I know there's about to be a cohesion problem.
What I see a student that they can't write topic sentences.
I know there's going to be a cohesion problem right.
So cohesion is dealing with words and phrases that like signpost symbols is like the stop sign or it's
like a yield sign right.
It gives you direction of where to go
cohesive writing.
As I said earlier is the glue it keeps it all together.
It makes your essay easy to read easy to read.
You know when you when you see an essay that's easy to read.
That means that it has a high level of cohesion.
These are my three big tips for cohesion and coherence.
Very often I talk about these two together because they go hand-in-hand.
OK.
So you write a proper thesis statement right.
If you write a proper thesis statement you increase your ability to have cohesion writing a great outline
and making sure each section of the essay is connected.
These are different cohesion devices
OK conjunctions great cohesive devices.
Very often students write sentences in their missing conjunctions.
When you're missing conjunctions you're damaging your cohesion punctuation proper punctuation since
that sentence connect gives sentence frames.
Right
so these are all cohesive devices conjunctions are great again because they show the links between your
ideas.
Punctuation is important because it helps you know where you stop and go and where do you pause your
sentence can negatives help you to be able to transition from idea to idea and your sentence frames
act like signposting.
So if you want to have really good cohesion These are the devices that you need to be able to use very
well
repetition.
Right.
So some people say well it's not good to be repetitive sometimes repetition is great for cohesion but
you can't be rapid you can't be overly repetitive.
Right.
Sometimes when you're overly repetitive especially on an English test it shows you have a lack of ability
but here we're being repetitive with a very specific word combination modern art right.
So by me repeating this in the first sentence in the second sentence I'm using repetition in a way that
is cohesive
synonyms and synonyms and paraphrasing right synonyms are words that have the same meaning and provide
provide variety in your word choices.
Right UCSC is they're avoiding repetition because really repetition is something that should be used
very very specifically with very very specific language that doesn't really have synonyms.
Now here's an example below.
You see in the first sentence we have the word myths.
And then in the second sentence we use the words traditional narratives.
That's an example of using synonym language.
That type of setting them language builds cohesion
pronouns.
Right.
Effective use of pronouns is so so important so important because it's an English school everybody.
Right.
And remember this is an English test.
So look at what I have here at the bottom when psychological when psychological counseling devices do
not work out as expected they are often considered a failure until the right doctor is located to try
again.
Those that work better.
Those that work out better the second time often lead to positive results.
That is what cohesive needed that that is what cohesive writing looks like.
That is what cohesive writing looks like everyone repeated parallel structure really really important
right.
Really really important when editing your writing notice when you have repeated what you have admitted
and what you have not expressed clearly that is called repeated parallel structure repeated parallel
structure is evidence of cohesion
transitions most of you know transitions.
Right.
I'm not going to read this paragraph here but most students when they think about the word cohesion
they think about transitions and they overly use transitions.
Right now this example here is I wouldn't use this mini exam this many transitions I'm just using these
transitions here to give you an example of transitional language but the big problem is that most students
only think about cohesion and will they only think about transitions when it comes to cohesion.
And there are transitions there's repeat a parallel structure.
There are pronouns.
They're synonyms and there's repetition of specific language.
All of these combined together really build cohesion is not just about transitions.
It's not just about transitions everybody.
I'm not going to read this but this is an example of transitional language.
We can look at these two paragraphs and look at how the paragraph at the bottom uses transition language
and how it's easier to understand because of that transition.
So take a look at that and get a good idea of how transitions are.
Okay everybody.
And here we have an example of low or basic level cohesion and I know a lot of you are going to look
at this and say well the sentences are well written why is this the low score.
Write something I'll be well written and written correctly but the level of English demonstrated is
a low level right.
So this doesn't have any cohesion cohesive devices is just a series of short simple sentences.
It's a series of short simple sentences and also it has fragments like
here's that same paragraph.
It has a good or intermediate level of cohesion.
Here is that same paragraph with a high score advanced level of cohesion.
Now I know some of you are saying well I will I want to see the mod together I can't really see them
separated like this.
Don't worry about that.
Here it is right.
Look at example one example to an example three look at exact look at the difference between a low score
of cohesion a good score of cohesion and a high score of cohesion.
When we talk about cohesion This is what we're talking about.
OK so thank you very much for joining me in this discussion on cohesion and I hope that it was beneficial
for you.
Thanks a lot and talk to you soon.