IELTS: What is coherence and cohesion? (and why you should care)

8

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