Enough has been said about cohesion. Let’s talk about coherence.

Coherence and cohesion

Coherence is the logical unity of ideas. Cohesion is the linguistic ways of achieving that. I’ll give a couple of absurd examples to illustrate the concepts:

Pure cohesion: "I like apples. This leads to my passion for writing. Additionally, hedgehogs are cute." The cohesion is there - this leads to and additionally. But the coherence isn’t - there is zero connection between ideas.

Pure coherence: "I like apples. I find pears delicious." The ideas are connected - I talk about two types of food I like. But there is no linguistic marker to unite them, so they look isolated.

Ideally, coherence and cohesion must work together: "I like apples. I also find pears delicious."

Cohesion is easy because it’s noticeable - you have an actual word or phrase that will unite your ideas into one whole. But cohesion must support coherence, not substitute it. If your ideas are not logically connected on the level of ideas, no cohesion will save them. If you add “additionally” to your sentence, it doesn’t mean the ideas are suddenly connected. 

So how do you achieve or check for coherence?

Before I share my solution, let’s conduct a small experiment. Look at this sentence, pause for a moment and think what sentence might go next.

• This world is changing rapidly, but not everyone is ready or able to accept the changes.

Now look at what the student actually wrote.

• This world is changing rapidly, but not everyone is ready or able to accept the changes. However, effective communication and understanding can be useful tools in breaking barriers.

The cohesion - however - is there. The coherence isn’t - the ideas are totally disconnected.

How do you make sure your ideas are connected on the level of ideas? My solution is invisible questions. For example:

• This world is changing rapidly, but not everyone is ready or able to accept the changes. (Who isn’t?)
• This world is changing rapidly, but not everyone is ready or able to accept the changes. (What changes?)
• This world is changing rapidly, but not everyone is ready or able to accept the changes. (Why aren’t they ready or able?)

After you’ve built those invisible bridges in your head, albeit in draft form, you are ready to add cohesion. For example:

• This world is changing rapidly, but not everyone is ready or able to accept the changes. (Who isn’t?) Older people, for example, find it hard to …
• This world is changing rapidly, but not everyone is ready or able to accept the changes. (What changes?) These include new technologies and new social norms which …
• This world is changing rapidly, but not everyone is ready or able to accept the changes. (Why aren’t they ready or able?) This can happen because people become less flexible with age.

These invisible questions will help you link ideas on the level of ideas and then choose appropriate cohesive devices, thus helping you create a completely coherent and cohesive essay. You need to choose the questions wisely because each question will lead you further and further in a particular direction. Make sure it's the direction you need. 

Some questions will help you identify what’s missing and add it. Let’s go back to my student’s example:

• “This world is changing rapidly, but not everyone is ready or able to accept the changes.” The missing question is, “What is the result of this?” So the missing sentence is probably, “This leads to misunderstanding and conflict between people of different generations.” And then we have this invisible question “How can this misunderstanding be resolved?” and our original sentence, “However, any such misunderstanding can be resolved with open and effective communication.”

With the help of the invisible question we identified what was missing, added it, and ended up with a more coherent paragraph:

• “This world is changing rapidly, but not everyone is ready or able to accept the changes. This leads to misunderstanding and conflict between people of different generations. However, any such misunderstanding can be resolved with open and effective communication.”

Cohesion has been discussed ad nauseum - everyone and their mother knows all those cohesive devices. But coherence is more elusive - when you write, everything seems connected to you. How do you notice this lack of coherence? How do you notice that your ideas seem disconnected? I hope it will be easier with this post.

Image credit: Photo by CJ Dayrit on Unsplash