TRANSCRIPT EPISODE 3: COHERENCE AND COHESION IN WRITING

Hello, and welcome to Study English, IELTS preparation. I’m Margot Politis.

Today we’ll look at writing an essay on ageing populations and how to organise ideas
about it in a paragraph.

Let’s begin by listening to a young woman talking about her grandmother:

She does mainly the cooking and looking after us, you know, making sure that we
turn out right, being strict with us. But I think part of her being here, like, allowed us to
have respect for like, you know, older people. Yeah, I think from her, I’ve learned a
lot – like, the Buddhist belief, how to be a good person, how to be honest and
respectable person to everyone around you.

She talked about the valuable contributions an elderly person can make. The
grandmother has positively influenced the children, teaching them respect and
honesty, and cooking. Let’s see how this sort of positive view about older people is
developed in a paragraph as part of an essay.

The paragraph starts with a sentence that establishes the main point:

The valuable contributions that active and healthy aged individuals can make
should not be overlooked.

This is called the topic sentence. The main idea is valuable contributions that active
and healthy aged individuals can make.

The writer then goes on with two sentences that support the main idea that old
people make valuable contributions by saying what the contributions are.

Firstly, these retired people could take on the role of carers for their
grandchildren, allowing both parents to work longer hours and save on day
care expenses.

Notice the linking word ‘firstly’. It means there will be more than one supporting
sentence.

What linking word should follow ‘firstly”?

Secondly, the retirees could volunteer their services as drivers for the very old
and sick.

To further develop the supporting ideas, the writer provides an example.

For example, they could deliver meals directly to their homes or assist with
transportation to and from specialist appointments or hospital.

The sentence is logically related to what has just been said and linked by ‘for
example’. This sentence is called a developing sentence.

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How you refer back to things you have just written is an important way of creating a
natural flow to your language. The examiners call it cohesion.

You do this with words called referents which help make links within and between
sentences and paragraphs:

For instance, look at these sentences:

‘These retired individuals’. ‘These’ refers back to ‘aged individuals’ in the

Referents are used all the time and not just in essays. Listen to the way the man in
the next clip uses ‘the’ and ‘those’ to refer back:

The car's driven by four inhub motors. And the inhub motors directly drive the four
wheels. The power source is the batteries. Those batteries are sort of charged by
literally plugging it in at home or by the solar cells.

He doesn’t just repeat himself. He says the car is driven by inhub motors. To say
what the motors do, he refers to them again, but as the inhub motors:

The car's driven by four inhub motors. And the inhub motors directly drive the four
wheels.

Next he says that the power source is the batteries. He’s already said ‘the’ batteries
so he refers to them again as ‘those batteries’:

The power source is the batteries. Those batteries are sort of charged by literally
plugging it in at home or by the solar cells.

Using referents helps you avoid using exactly the same words too often.
You can also use synonyms - words that have similar meanings - in much the same
way.

Let’s look at our paragraph about aged people again.

'Aged individuals is not repeated in the same form in the paragraph, but as
Retired individuals, retirees and in specific roles as carers and drivers.

Using referents and synonyms skilfully is not just for essays. Let’s look at the way
synonyms and referents create cohesion and meaning in the next clip on an entirely
different topic, the ruined city of Angkor Wat:

Right now we're at Angkor, which is a collection of temples in the north of Cambodia,
which, about a thousand years ago, was the centre of a huge empire which stretched
across most of South-East Asia. The true significance of the place is that it's probably
the world's most amazing collection of religious monuments. What you see here is a
scale of engineering and aesthetic beauty and a complexity that isn't really seen at
any other collection of monument sites around the world.

First he calls Angkor by its name:

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Right now we're at Angkor…

He then refers to it and says what it is:

…which is a collection of temples in the north of Cambodia

Refers again and explains its function:

…which, about a thousand years ago, was the centre of a huge empire which
stretched across most of South-East Asia.

He goes on to refer to Angkor again as ‘the place’ and ‘it’, and finds another way of
saying ‘collection of temples’: collection of religious monuments:

The true significance of the place is that it's probably the world's most amazing
collection of religious monuments.

Now let’s look at coherence. What is coherence?

When writing an essay you need to organise and develop your argument logically
using paragraphs, starting with an introduction, 2 or 3 body paragraphs and
finishing with a conclusion. There should be a clear transition from one paragraph
to the next, linking the ideas between paragraphs. The paragraph we looked at
earlier was the first body paragraph of an essay answering this question:

The increasing number of older people will cause economic problems for the
young.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

For this sort of essay you have to write about different things in each body
paragraph. The first paragraph disagreed - it said what positive things older people
contribute. So the next body paragraph has to look at the negative effects of an
ageing population. Let’s look at what its opening sentence or topic sentence should
be like:

However, the increasing proportion of older people no longer contributing as

Notice that the sentence begins with the word ‘however’. However is a linking word
that is used for contrasting. It shows the writer is moving on to develop the other side
of the argument.

To recap, you should know how to structure an essay. Using paragraphs correctly in
your essay is important. You need an introduction, which gives some background
information about the topic, followed by what you are going to write about.

You start the first body paragraph with a topic sentence that establishes the main
idea you will write about. You follow this with some supporting sentences that give
reasons and provide examples that develop your ideas further.

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You do something similar with the next body paragraph, but from the opposite point
of view and finish with a conclusion that summarises the main points and makes it
clear what you think.

And you should link sentences with transition words.

This gives your essay coherence.

Using referents and synonyms as we’ve seen will help you achieve cohesion.

That’s all for today.

You’ll find more detail about today’s program at our website at:
australianetwork.com/studyenglish.

Good luck with your studies.

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