Coherence and Cohesion in Academic Writing
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.ค. 2024
- Cohesion and coherence are important features of academic writing. This video explains the difference between them and how to achieve good coherence and cohesion, including reference to the IELTS and TOEFL tests.
▬ Contents of this video ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
00:00 Intro
00:34 Definition
01:22 Ways to achieve cohesion
06:47 Ways to improve coherence
10:02 How IELTS/TOEFL assess coherence and cohesion
14:38 Summary
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Video created using VideoScribe software [affiliate link]:
tidd.ly/37VdIB7
Cohesion relates to how words and sentences 'stick together' and make sense. It is achieved through using five methods: (1) reference words (e.g. he, she, it, them); (2) repeated words/ideas; (3) transition signals (also called cohesive devices); (4) substitution (replacing one word with another); and (5) ellipsis (omitting words).
Coherence relates to the organisation and progression of ideas, which help a text make sense to the reader. You can improve coherence by improving organisation (e.g. by making an outline before writing) and thinking about how to ensure the text makes sense to the reader (e.g. consider audience or get a peer to read through).
Coherence and cohesion are assessed as part of the IELTS and TOEFL tests, and the video examines the publicly available criteria to help you understand what they mean and what is being examined. The video will therefore help you to both improve your academic writing, and perform better in the IELTS or TOEFL tests.
For more information on this topic, see:
www.eapfoundation.com/writing...
You can also view the video on Youku:
v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDU2MTE...
The publicly available criteria (band descriptors/rubrics) for IELTS and TOEFL are here:
takeielts.britishcouncil.org/... (IELTS)
www.ets.org/s/toefl/pdf/toefl... (TOEFL)
If you like these videos, consider supporting my work on Patreon at:
/ eapfoundation .
You can get early access to videos as well as additional resources for English for Academic Purposes (EAP).
Other useful links:
www.eapfoundation.com/ (EAPFoundation.com website home page)
/ eapfoundation (LinkedIn)
/ eapfoundation (Facebook)
This is the best video I've ever found on youtube. Ty :)
Thanks. You're too kind. Really pleased that you enjoyed it 😀
I can think of no greater compliment than to say than this video is perfectly coherent.
This is so crisp and to the point! Amazing content!
This is a fantastic video! It explains these difficult concepts really clearly. Thanks so much for creating it.
I'm glad you liked it. I aimed for clarity in the video. If you want more info, check out the page on the website, which includes a couple of points not covered here (shell nouns and thematic development), plus some exercises.
www.eapfoundation.com/writing/cohesion/
@@Eapfoundation Yes, I actually found the video through your website. I've shared the video in a couple of IELTS Facebook groups, and it's getting a good reaction. I like the fact that it's just graphics and text on screen, so it gets the point across really well; it's much better than the 'talking head' presentation style I feel. What software did you use for this? Is it Videoscribe?
Yes, I used VideoScribe for this one, with transitions using Blender. I've been trying a few different applications. This one seems to work well for this type of video so I'll be using it more in future. Thanks for the share BTW, really seemed to have an impact.
I guess Im randomly asking but does anybody know of a way to log back into an instagram account?
I was dumb lost the account password. I appreciate any tips you can give me.
@Morgan Andre instablaster ;)
Thnaks for the well-organized graphics and text. It was helpful to revivify the essentials for the writing lesson!
You're very welcome. I'm glad it was helpful.
I've been looking for this kind of explanation for ages. Now it's clear enough, thanks a lot!!!
You're welcome. Glad it was helpful.
super insightful! thank you so much
I have been looking for this explanation for ages. thanks for bringing this up
No problem. Glad it was helpful.
I have no adjective to give you complement. Just a fantastic video on this topic.🥰
Thank you now it's pretty easy to understand even for a non-native English learner
Thanks for clear explanation💯
what a fantastic video! it is clear and practical for non-english language learners to understand how to write in an "english language" way. because of different language families, like the things that chinese language is Sino-Tibetan family of languages whereas english belongs to Indo-European language family, it is hard for chinese students to write logically, but i think this video helps a lot for them to know what to do step by step to check whether they are writing english. hahahaha. thx a million.
Thanks for the thoughtful and positive comment. I'm glad you liked the video.
So helpful video and this description is too funny 🤣🤣thx
You are the best I ever see in explaining , thank you so much my best regarded.
Thank you. Very kind of you to say. I'm glad the video was helpful.
6:49~ coherence
8:18 coherene -outline
10:08~ ielts
14:24 summary
Thanks for this comment. I should have added video chapters before! I've done that now so there are timings in the description and chapters in the video.
It's one of the outstanding & easiest explanations of the most difficult terms. Thank you sir.
Kind of you to say so. I'm glad you found it helpful.
Excellent video! Clear, concise and relevant. Thank you.
This is so clearly structured and explained. Thank you. 😃
You're very welcome. I'm glad you found the content useful.
Thanks a million for your video. The explanation was made clear with relevant examples.
No problem. I'm glad you found it helpful.
Thanks sir for this great material for cohesion and coherence. Now i can understand about this material. Very goods with the similar means
I'm glad you found it helpful.
fantastic video sir
this is brilliant! I am struggling to improve my writing skill. You have helped me a lot. thank you!
Thanks for the response. I'm so glad you found it useful.
Your videos and website are wonderful. I wish I knew that sooner. Thanks to Fiona who introduced you.
Thanks, glad you like them. Thanks also to Fiona for recommending them.
Thank you! I guess i understood a bit of it but still very thankful!
I'm glad you liked it. Remember you can always watch with captions turned on. That might make it a bit easier to follow.
I love your explanation, thank you very much.
I'm glad it was helpful.
thank you sir.. this is really helpful, please continue
Thank you, I will
Sir, Thank you for this wonderful video.
Hi Qursheed. Thanks for the positive comment! I am glad you liked it.
This is so exceptional that I am utterly speechless
Very kind of you to say. Glad you liked it.
Appreciable. Thanks
You're welcome. Glad you enjoyed it.
Oh my! This is a masterpiece!
Thanks. I'm glad you liked it.
You've a new subscriber, sir .I really appreciate your work it helps me a lot 💚💚💚 from Algeria
Welcome! I'm glad you found the video helpful.
Marvelous..very systematic and clear explanation..
Thanks. I'm pleased you liked it.
Lots of love from india.What a great effort.🙏
Very kind of you. Glad you enjoyed it.
Super helpful! Thank you🙏🏻
You're very welcome!
Thank you.
Please upload ielts lexical resources as well as Grammar range and accuracy like coherence and cohesion video you do
Yes, I will try to do that soon, beginning with Lexical Resource.
Are there any videos for the other three criteria
crystal clear 👍👍
Thanks. Glad you liked it.
Nice i was looking for video like this
That's good. I'm glad it was helpful.
This is, entirely,an amazing one🥰
Thanks so much for saying so. Glad you liked it.
Very helpful indeed
Glad you think so 😀
Awesome
Amazing! Thank you...
Glad you liked it!
I am looking for such amazing videos. Thank you indeed for this wonderful presentation
Could you please explain the cohesion through taxonomic relations; like meronymy, co-meronymy?
Thank you very much
I'm glad you liked it.
Taxonomic relations (like meronymy, which denotes parts of a whole) are related to cohesion inasmuch as they are lexical sets. Lexical (i.e. vocabulary) sets are another form of cohesion, but not covered in the video. E.g. 'books, class, homework, teacher' is an example of a lexical set since these words are all related to 'school'. So a sentence such as this is cohesive because of the related words: 'I took the wrong books to class and couldn't hand in my homework, which made the teacher very angry.' Or this one: 'The conductor found I didn't have a valid ticket and made me get off at the next station.' The lexical set there is words related to 'train'.
Taxonomy implies classification, and with lexical sets as a form of cohesion, classification it isn't necessary. All that matters is that the words are related. A final example, a shortened version of the above: 'The conductor found I didn't have a valid ticket and made me get off.' Here the situation could be on a train, a bus, or a tram. Difficult to classify. However, 'conductor' and 'ticket' are part of a lexical set and so help the sentence cohere.
Dr Smith, I live in another place in several days each month; the middle of savannah in South East Sulawesi Indonesia. It's difficult for me to have your material. I have to find a signal in the airport before entering savannah. Is it possible for us who live in a remote area having your material?
Hi. Thanks for the message. If you mean the videos, you should be able to download them to watch offline later. The same might be true for the website, though that is more difficult. There are also the books which go with the website. I'm working on an App which can be used offline to get much of the same content as the website, but that will take some time to develop.
Thank you!❤
You're welcome 😊 Glad you enjoyed it.
it is really useful for enligsh writing learners to know how to be cohesive and coherent and I really love this video. however I have feel a little bit confused about the point how to make my essay be united. i mean I know all pieces of evidence have to be related to the topic sentence. but during the process of writing, how for leaners to make sure that all my words and sentences are related to the point. thank you very much.
Hi Lin Cong. Thanks for the question.
There are various ways to ensure your writing has unity (i.e. the ideas in the paragraph relate to the topic sentence).
One way happens before writing, when you create an outline. This is suggested in the video. At this stage your writing will just contain the ideas, not all the words and sentences, and so it will be easier to check if all ideas you have relate to the topic sentence.
However, not everyone writes an outline (or, if they do, not in detail). A second way happens when writing, by bearing in mind the topic sentence and making sure ideas relate to it. Even if you have an outline, you may still need to do this as you might add ideas when writing that you didn't think of when planning, some of which may be off-topic.
A third way happens after writing, as you edit your work (or get someone to peer edit it). If unity is an issue, this is something you can specifically check for. A good peer editing checklist would include this element.
Hope that helps.
thank you so much!
You're welcome.
Hello!. You mentioned that coherence is exclusively a macro property of writing. But I have found that depending on the source, coherence is defined as both, a macro and micro textual property. I think that micro coherence could indirectly lead to cohesion. Imperfect as this cohesion could be, I interpret this as a possibility that cohesion could be a sub-property of coherence.
Hi Clive. I don't think the terms micro and macro are commonly used to describe coherence and cohesion, though I used them as they seem to me to help clarify the difference between the two terms, which can be confusing, to the extent that some writers treat them as being the same (though they are not).
The British Council have a nice visual here, which makes coherence look more macro and cohesion more micro:
takeielts.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/ielts_writing-_coherence_cohesion.pdf
Coherence is described as 'logically sequenced', 'appropriately organised' and 'easy to follow and understand', in contrast to cohesion which is about 'connecting ideas'.
Duke University, here, defines cohesion as the 'sentence by sentence flow' in contrast to coherence which relates to 'the overall sense of unity in a passage, including both the main point of sentences and the main point of each paragraph', which again contrasts the micro with the macro.
twp.duke.edu/sites/twp.duke.edu/files/file-attachments/cohesion-coherence.original.pdf
To answer your point, I'm not sure that coherence can be both micro or macro; overall, it would seem to be more about the bigger picture of organising ideas. Things could lack coherence on a smaller scale, but still be coherent overall. I don't think that cohesion is a sub-property of coherence, since cohesion is about grammtical and lexical things (e.g. reference words, synonyms) whereas coherence cannot be looked at in the same way. Plus, it is possible for a text to have cohesion but not coherence, e.g. 'Although I love English, it is not a flower. In other words, your shoes are purple.' The ideas there make no sense (they lack coherence), but the use of transitions and pronoun link them together well (they have cohesion).
Thankyou. It was very useful👌
Glad it was helpful.
Great video!
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.
Why did my teacher make me watch this.
RI?
Most likely, your writing had bad coherence and bad cohesion.
same.
i understood coherence more than cohesion 😢
Same
Wow that was awesome 🌺👏👏👏
Thanks for the response. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Thank you 💙
You’re welcome 😊
Very helpful
Glad to hear that
Such an informative video.
Much Appreciated! I am currently grading my students' essays using IELTS rubric. Is there any possibility that I send you one checked paper just to get confirmation that I am assessing properly (This is my first experience of grading the papers using IELTS rubric). Please let me know. Thank you.
No problem. Check website for my email if you don't have it already.
Nice video.it's slove my problem
Great. I'm glad it was helpful.
nice explanation
Thanks. glad you enjoyed it.
Fantastic
Thanks for the positive feedback.
I have lot of problems with coherence. Could you make more videos about that?.
Hi. Thanks for the request. I will add it to my 'to do' list. Several other videos to do first though.
Very useful 🙏🙏🙏
Glad to hear it.
Thanks man ❤️
You're welcome. Glad it was helpful.
Could you make videos on ielts essays please with the easy tips aligning with the required criteria
Thanks for the suggestion. I've been thinking of doing that for a while. There are a lot of IELTS channels out there already so the videos might be lost in the crowd. But I think I could make something that students preparing for IELTS will find useful. I'll work on it soon.
@@Eapfoundation Thank you so much!! As you mentioned, there are many IELTS based channels on TH-cam and elsewhere. That said, no one has solely been able to guide candidates so far as to how to get to an essay and strike 7. We have to take bits and pieces from here and there and come to our own conclusions. So please come to our rescue 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏Much appreciated 🙏🙏🙏
Thank you. It was informative. I learnt a lot from your video.
Great. Glad it was helpful for you.
It is a debatable topic whether doing study with other students in school is better for the development of children or e-learning is a good platform for this purpose. In my opinion, former method of learning is more useful than later method.
To begin with, the first and foremost benefit of learning with other is that the weakness can be strength in any subject. To explain it, the overall performance can be improved whether the student is good at all subject or not. In addition to this, some students do mathematics well while others are lack in these subjects and due to group study, sum and numerical can be solved easily with the help of other group members who are intelligent to solve numerical problems. For example, depict I was lack in science, I scored 99% just because of one of classmate. Thus, doing study together can helpful to improve the academic performance in exams.
Apart from this, many interpersonal skills can be developed in a team. To make it clear, although children can communicate with parents, but the communication with other children who are at the same age is most beneficial to enhance communication skills. In schools, there are many extracurricular activities are organized, where communication and cooperate is essential in order to win the competition. For example, project and assignment where all members of group have to participate equally as well as communicate with each other in order to decide topic or how to organise . Clearly , social skills can be gained, which is beneficial for adulthood life, however, this is not possible in online study.
In conclusion, I restate my opinion that making groups in class for study purposes is better for over-all learning than online learning. Plzz tell me my mistakes because my exam is on 24 June.
Better if you can email to me? contact@eapfoundation.com
@@Eapfoundation can you tell me here? Plzzz
Thank you sir for this good video.Luisito Catalbas
Thanks. I'm glad you liked it.
very good, many thanks Prof.
You're welcome. Glad it was helpful.
Make use of coherence & cohesion in a form of an essay. .
can you help.😑😐
Hi Jenny. I don't quite get the question. Do you need to write an essay about coherence and cohesion, or do you just need to write an essay using good coherence and cohesion? What is the essay for?
4:38
❤ Amarat Amaratbapa
a
Ellipsis is not clearly explained.
I want to find this video but on French
Sorry, can't help you with academic writing in French!
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻☘️