Coherence at Three Levels
Coherence is not one thing
- Coherence occurs at different levels in a piece of writing.
- In a sentence, the idea in one clause logically links to the idea in the next.
- In a paragraph, one sentence links to the next; in a text, one paragraph links to the next.
Select all the levels at which the CED says coherence occurs.
Three levels, each with its own test.
Coherence comes from arrangement
- Writers achieve coherence when the arrangement and organization of reasons, evidence, ideas or details is logical.
- So coherence is produced by the order first, and only then signalled by words.
- Connectives cannot rescue a paragraph whose ideas are in the wrong sequence.
Select all the devices the CED lists for indicating relationships.
Four of the five are not connective words at all.
Five devices that indicate relationships
- The CED lists them: transitions, repetition, synonyms, pronoun references, parallel structure.
- Four of the five are not connective words at all — which is why an essay can be coherent without a single furthermore.
- Repeating a key noun is often stronger than a transition, because it names the thread instead of announcing one.
Which level of coherence is being tested?
Sort each check by the level the CED names.
Adding transitions can make an essay with the wrong paragraph order coherent.
Coherence lives in the arrangement; devices only indicate relationships the order already has.
Transitions cannot rescue a wrong order. The CED puts coherence in the arrangement and organization first; the five devices only indicate relationships that the sequence already has. An essay full of furthermore and moreover whose paragraphs could be shuffled is not coherent — it is labelled.
Match each level to its test.
Three tests you can run in the last two minutes of an exam.
Parallel structure carries meaning
- Two sentences built the same way tell the reader the ideas are of the same kind.
- Break the pattern and the reader registers that this one is different.
- So parallel structure is a coherence device that also does the work of emphasis.
To test coherence at the text level, read only your ____ sentences in order.
If they make an argument by themselves, the arrangement is sound.
A coherence pass at each level
- Text: read only your topic sentences in order. Do they make an argument by themselves?
- Paragraph: does each sentence pick up something from the one before?
- Sentence: does the second clause follow from the first, or merely sit beside it?
Read three topic sentences in order: the praise is confined to the past tense → the present-tense passages describe only the house's absence → so the affection the poem expresses requires the loss it laments. No transition words at all, and the argument is fully coherent — the arrangement did it.
Coherence occurs at three levels — sentence, paragraph, text — and comes from a logical arrangement, not from connectives. Relationships may be indicated by transitions, repetition, synonyms, pronoun references and parallel structure; four of the five are not connective words. Test the text level by reading your topic sentences alone.