Hello there in this lecture we are going to discuss the methods to improve paragraph coherence.
Many students have asked me to give them some idea of what this idea of what this concept of coherence
means.
You see it in the red writing rubrics you've seen it all over the Internet.
When they're telling you about good paragraphs use coherence.
But many of you don't really understand how to implement coherence.
So in this short lecture I'm going to hopefully give you some examples of how you can include coherence
in your writing.
Now I will also say that this advice that I'm giving you for including coherence in your writing also
works well for including coherence in your speaking.
So remember for the most part was good for writing is also good for speaking.
OK.
So let's move on and let's find out how we can get better with including coherence.
This is a no this is not of a writing class but I just thought that it was so important to include coherence
because many students don't know how to implement it properly.
All right.
So let's have a look and see exactly what we need to do.
Well when we talk about coherence there are when you when you look over the Internet or you look at
a year from different sources most of the time they give you about three or four.
Actually there are about seven different ways to include coherence.
And so I'm going to go over all seven of these we're dealing with repeating key words pronoun reference
parallelism transition words verb tense synonyms and also sequencing and using all of these are just
a few of these is going to greatly impress the greater when it comes to judging you on the concept of
coherence.
Did you use it or not.
Well our first two concepts deal with repeating a key phrase and also pronoun reference.
Look at our paragraph here for repeating a key phrase for Donald Trump without power a politician is
nothing.
A politician must have the power to be heard.
The power to decide and equally important the power to shape events according to Trump.
A politician without power is an empty suit.
Every politician should exude power in every move and nonverbal gesture if he wants to be powerfully
respected.
Now there is good coherence here.
Right because without a question you know this paragraph is about politicians needing power is clear
right.
That's an example of coherence.
Now I think if you are using some synonyms for the word power that can make it even better because it's
showing also some creativity to your writing.
But just as a basic tenet repeating a key phrase is a good way to show cohesion.
The pronoun reference pronoun reference is also a very good way to show cohesion.
Now I am in this paragraph I am exaggerating it a little bit.
I probably wouldn't use this many pronouns but I'm just exaggerating it a little bit to give you an
idea of what it means to use pronouns.
Chinese people can be very soft spoken but don't let that give you the wrong idea of their intensity
and determination.
When the time comes they can be pretty tough and they will let you know with clarity what they mean.
Chinese culture spread all over the world and prehistory.
It is because these soft spoken people learn how to get their point across without saying it loudly
right.
So there we have a really good use of pronouns to build cohesion.
Now let's take a look at our next two concepts.
Parallelism and transition language first parallelism with the Republican Party in 2017.
The Dems are with the Republican victory in 2017.
The Democratic party felt all that Obama had work for was to be lost their voters had deserted them.
Their policies were being dismissed and their credibility.
Speaking for the people have been lost.
You see that sentence.
That's parallelism.
The more they search for answers and the more they adjust to their view point of view the less confident
the average American became and their ability to govern.
That sentence also has parallelism right there.
These are the kind of things you can do that will impress the greater when it comes to evaluating or
writing on the concept of coherence.
Transition language although it is now nearly two years since Barack Obama left office his legacy is
still debated in American politics.
Or Donald Trump and the him and the Republican Party have not been in power since 2008.
Many of their policies still live on despite Obama's efforts to change them.
Indeed some people see Obama as having failed in his legacy.
Since Now Trump can easily wipe out any gains Obama made with the stroke of a pen right.
So with parallelism it's important because parallelism helps you to bind your text together like glue.
Remember also a transition words you don't really want to necessarily overdo it.
Right.
And also a transition words don't use the same words paragraph after paragraph sentence after sentence
variety.
Right.
Range Range Range Range is very very important.
Find two concepts.
Our two concepts that we're going to talk about together like this I guess there are a couple of more
I'm going to mention actually synonyms.
Synonyms are very very important.
It's a way of repeating key phrases but doing it creatively and I think that's even more highly value
highly valued.
Teenagers face an enormous amount of peer pressure from friends and schoolmates as a result.
Many young adults are exhibiting signs of severe stress or depression at an early age.
These adolescents need professional help to overcome their problems when this help is given.
Our high school age youngsters will feel less Wolf.
They will feel less peer pressure ok enough to change that sentence grammatically.
That last sentence everybody the last sentence should read when there's help is given when this help
is given.
It should be a comma there.
And now I have to go.
I have to go back and edit that when this help is given.
Karma are a high school age youngsters will feel less peer pressure.
OK that's all that final sentence should read.
Everybody I'm speaking to you like we're in a classroom but this doesn't have actually what I would
do in the classroom was just correct myself right then.
So again that final sentence sentence is when this help was given comma.
Our high school age youngsters will feel less peer pressure.
They should be crossed out.
All right.
But that's an example of using synonyms.
Next when it comes to sequencing information is information from old to new.
That just means that the old or unknown information is placed at the beginning and the new or unknown
information is placed at the end of a sentence.
Right.
That's proper sequencing.
And also in terms of sequencing things go from general to specific.
All right in a paragraph the general idea goes before this specific idea.
That's also proper coherence and proper cohesion.
Which is the same thing cohesion coherence of verb tenses should not be incorrectly used as you say
in this paragraph here as you can see in the first sentence.
We're using the past tense and then in the very next sentence or using the present tense you wouldn't
believe how many how many times I see this in essays.
It is amazing.
It really is amazing how many times I see this in essays where people are just mixing up their tenses
in one paragraph and it's difficult for me as is a challenge you have to be aware of it.
I've made that mistake before.
So I mean none of us are perfect.
But this is just something you want to be aware of in terms of if you want to get a high grade in terms
of coherence right this is what that paragraph will look like as you see now.
Everything is in the past tense.
So now we have really good coherence here point of view is very important.
If you look at this paragraph you have to keep the point of view of the same person throughout the whole
paragraph.
Very very helpful.
If you look at this paragraph the point of view is changing from the first sentence to the second sentence
and you don't want to do that.
Here is a very good example of weak and strong coherence.
The first paragraph says we coherence is really not.
Is this a ok paragraph.
I look at it is it's ok paragraph but it doesn't have strong coherence.
It doesn't have strong coherence in language and in the next paragraph is even better.
Right.
It has really strong coherence and I've underlined the language and you see some of the key language
phrases repeated now.
That gives stronger coherence.
Right.
So maybe I should have called it weaker coherence and stronger coherence.
But that first paragraph is is good but the next paragraph the paragraph below is even better much better
because of the coherence language built into that paragraph.
Right.
So just remember that coherence is something that really allows a paragraph in the essay to flow smoothly
to build one on top of the other right.
Coherence is like a scaffold when you're making a building up paragraphs.
You have a flow from beginning to end and that's done with very good coherence.
All right.
Good luck everybody.
I wish you well and if you have any questions please let me know.
Thank you.