Hey everyone this is Dori I am a teacher of
English and today I will talk to you about cohesion
and coherence and how you can achieve that in your writings
But first of all, what is cohesion and coherence
and why you should care! Both cohesion
and coherence have to do with the organisation of your ideas and how smoothly
one idea follows the previous one for
the reader. Basically how relatively linked
they are together and how smoothly they
follow one another so as for the reader to follow
a logical train of thought and not some unrelated ideas here
and there linked with each other
without any meaning. So far so good. So,
what is the difference between them why do we need to use
two words-cohesion and coherence-in order to describe the same thing
well basically because coherence means
and has to do with the organisation of your whole essay
and its structure as a complete
writing while cohesion has to do with the
smaller parts: how these sentences
and their smaller parts are linked with each other how
correctly they are linked in this way.
Simply put, coherence is about the whole
of your essay while cohesion is about
the smaller parts. As you can understand both coherence and cohesion are interrelated
with each other and they complete each other
Now why you should care
well basically because cohesion and coherence
take 25 % of your band
in writing, in your IELTS writing this is a huge
percent! What is more, if your essay lacks
in cohesion and
coherence, you're more likely to make more mistakes
in other areas as well. So let's go and see and examine what you can do you in order to achieve cohesion
and coherence in your writing. Let's start with coherence which is about your writing
as a whole. So, tip number one
about coherence. First of all, paragraphs paragraphs
paragraphs please don't forget that this is extremely important
your essay should be separated with clear
paragraphs and in this way the structure will be very easy to follow for the examiner try
to have a clear introduction, two to
three main paragraphs for the main body of your essay
and a clear conclusion where you sum up, your main points
it is also very good for the examiner at first sight to see
a very well- structured essay
okay secondly concentrate
on the logical flow of your paragraphs. Now,
is not enough to have separated paragraphs
if these paragraphs are not related and
linked with each other in a logical sequence
you can't just express unrelated ideas
on a given topic and put them together just in order to
show how much you can say on the topic
because it isn't about how much you can say but it
is about how well you can say that
for example you need to follow a certain plan, if you want to talk about
advantages and disadvantages use
after your introduction, use one paragraph to analyse one advantage
and then another paragraph to analyse another advantage
and then if you want to move on to the disadvantage you can do that
in your next paragraph these
advantages and disadvantages should be related with each other with
linking phrases for example
for example if you want to add another advantage
you can start your next paragraph by saying
you have lots of options there, if you want to state a
disadvantage then you can say
and you have other options
in stating disadvantages or the opposite point
as well. Use these linking phrases
to connect paragraphs with each other. Of course not all essays are
going to be about advantages and disadvantages, however this isn't just an example in
order to help you
you can do that with a discussion essay
as well when you want to mention something different or when you want to
add
another point just remember to
follow a logical sequence with your paragraphs
Now let's move on to cohesion which is about the
smaller parts of your essay, your sentences
Tip number one, in each paragraph
concentrate on only one point
don't start talking about or relate
lots of different points in one single paragraph that are
unrelated with each other just use one point
analyse that a little bit and elaborate on it; give examples and your reasons
why you believe it is that way why this is your opinion
and then move on to the next paragraph
which will be about a different point. So, remember
only one argument in each
paragraph; try to keep it that way
Tip number 2; now about the sentences
I know that in IELTS writing especially
in Task 2 you are asked to write in a more complex way
using more advanced syntax and
I can help you do that step-by-step in this
video over here; how to write complex sentences however, sometimes when you try to do that
by yourself or even when you are not sure about it
you end up with convoluted sentences that make absolutely no sense
so what can really help you here is to follow
your train of thought step-by-step always keep in your mind
what is your verb what is your subject what is your main
sentence step-by-step and what you're trying to say
okay correct punctuation can really help you with that
what I mean by punctuation; I mean your commas and
your fullstops. Be ready to use your commas to separate main
sentences with dependent clauses and
stuff like that these commas and fullstops will
really help you to be as much cohesive as you can Tip number three
As we said before it is great to use linking phrases and words
in between paragraphs in order to
link them together and be more coherent however
I would advise you not to overdo it in a single paragraph
try not to use lots of linking words in a single
paragraph when you analyse a point
I would advise you just to use "for example" or "for instance" when you want to
state an example in order to defend your argument
but try not to overdo it with
linking phrases in just one paragraph because sometimes you may achieve
the opposite result your reader may be distracted
with too many linking phrases in five
or 6 lines. You should be able to use syntax instead of
linking phrases in the paragraph in order to be
more cohesive. For example you can use pronouns
you can use "who
which, that" you can use dependent
clauses and lots of syntactical rules
in order to help you be more cohesive
and avoid the excessive use of
linking phrases throughout your essay. Now let's recap!
for both cohesion and coherence