How does it work?
There are a variety of ways to make your writing more cohesive, here are a few ideas:
- conjunctions: these are the words like and and but
- pronouns: pronouns (it, they, this and that etc) are generally linking words as they link back to nouns
- vocabulary: another way to link is to use the same or similar word again.
How to do it?
There is no easy answer to this question. However, one very useful piece of advice is to make sure that each sentence starts with a reference back to the previous sentence. Look at this example:
There are many people who claim that global warming is the most significant threat facing us today. They argue this because it is a danger not just to the current generation, but also to the generations to come. Indeed, it is this threat to our future that is of most concern. For instance, some research shows that one effect of global warming might be there will not be enough food to feed the world in the near future. If that did happen…
If we look at how this links together, we see:
| many people | they (pronoun) |
| that global warming is … | this (pronoun) |
| claim | argue (synonym) |
| not just | but also (a matching pair) |
| current generation | generations to come (repetition) |
| a danger | this threat (pronoun + synonym) |
| Indeed (linking phrase for further explanation) | |
| generations to come | future |
| global warming | global warming (repetition of technical phrase) |
| there will be not enough food | that (pronoun) |
A common mistake
Exercise
Open the document in the box below and read through the exercise. There are two texts there. Which one do you prefer? Be careful, the better (and more cohesive text) may not necessarily be the text with the most obvious linking words.
Now check your answers
Did you get it right? Very few of my own students do. The reason for this is that they believe the only way to be cohesive is to use words such as “furthermore”: it is not.
Coherence and cohesion
In the test cohesion is graded with coherence – a very similar concept. To understand more about coherence, please visit this page:
and to see how examiners grade coherence and cohesion and how to avoid some common mistakes, please visit this page:
Hi Dominic,
First, i have to say what a terrific and outstanding job you have done with the website. It really has the works
I wanted to ask you in relation to academic writing task 1, whether it would be correct to start with an opening line as follows:
The table depicts that…..
Would it be possible to use the word depict rather than shows since i like to vary my vocabulary ?
Thanks
John
Hi
Interesting. You’re right in thinking that variation of vocab is a “good thing”. I would add though that this is typically less important in part 1 where clarity is all. Indeed, there are times it is better to repeat a word as that helps coherence. If you use a new word just for the sake of it, you can sometimes confuse the reader.
That’s not the case here though. My initial instinct was that “depict” is a fairly unusual word and wouldn’t be quite right here. However, a quick check of the Macmillan dictionary tells me that it is in fact really quite a common word. And yet I still don’t think it really works in this case. For me, “depict” has the core meaning of “show as a picture” and I’m not sure that that is what charts and graphs do. Have a look at Just the Word (another of my favourite sites) and see the normal word combinations – they are paintings, photographs and pictures. If you then check the same site, you’ll find that charts and diagrams do “show”.
So my boring advice is to stick with “show”. Simple as it is, i do believe that it is the best word here. One more thing. If you do want to try “depict”, you can’t really follow it with a “that” clause. It’s certainly not impossible to use “depict” – just a little dangerous. The one occasion I suggest trying it is when you get a process diagram.
Hope that helps.
Great site. A lot of useful information here. I’m sending it to some friends!
that’s so great
Really appreciate what you’ve done over here Dominic. Very useful information on cohesion. Cheers~!
Hi Dominic!
First of all, thank you for all the efforts and help. Your website is amassingly intresting and educational in the mean time; I realy enjoy your work. Secndly, I have one humble request! My job is in Afghanistan and as you know we sometimes have the opportunity to use internet due to little development in comunication sector of Afghanistan. Therefore I request you to tell me how can I download the entirewebsite to my PC so I will be able to use it anywhere I want and with ease.
Thanks
Yasini
Sorry, while I understand your circumstances, I am afraid I am not really prepared to allow the site to be downloaded completely. Each of the ‘lessons” can be downloaded/printed off by using the buttons at the bottom of the page which says “How to share/save..” At some stage, it is possible that I will produce some form of e-book that can be downloaded, but that is still some way off and the current materials are largely written in a format designed to be used online.