reveals the main point and summarizes the

Lesson 3: overall idea of the paragraph.

2. Coherence and Cohesion

Properties of a Well-Written Text A written text usually conveys a big amount
of information. It is composed of several ideas.
With this, messages or ideas in a text should
1. Organization have perceived coherence and cohesion.
It covers the arrangement of ideas Coherence is defined as the quality of being
presented in the paragraph. A written text logical, consistent, and understandable. On the
should be highly organized in such a way that other hand, cohesion is the act of forming a
one idea should logically flow to another idea. whole unit.
The main idea or controlling idea is To achieve and show coherence and cohesion
contained in the topic sentence. It can be found of ideas in a written text, writers can use
at the beginning, middle, or end of the cohesive devices or transitional words and
paragraph. The succeeding sentences support phrases for a clear and logical flow of thoughts
the topic sentence. from sentence to sentence and from paragraph
Example: to paragraph. These transitions signal or
prepare the reader for the idea that follows.
The agent or stimulus that elicits the
They show relationships of time, contrast,
stress reaction is referred to as the stressor.
result, and addition or example. Some examples
There is a range in the strength of the response
of transitions under these relationships are
the stressor elicits. This is referred to as
shown in the chart below.
intensity and can be viewed as a continuum with
Time Contrast Results Addition/
minor stressors on the one end and major
Example
stressors on the other. Most of the stressors After In contrast Therefore And
encountered daily are minor stressors, such as Before Instead Because Also
getting up late, running to class, and During However Then Besides
exhilaration over an unexpectedly high grade on Earlier Yet Thus For
Final On the So example
the test. They are encountered and adapted to
First contrary Hence In
with varying degrees of regularity. More intense
Afterward On the other As a addition
stressors such as the death of a family member, Furthermore hand result Such as
pregnancy or fathering a pregnancy, or Then Nevertheless
transferring to another school, could be major Later
stressors. Since
Until
-Stress: A Mental Wellness Challenge Meanwhile
(Adapted from Connections for Health, 1996 Examples of using cohesive devices or
transitions in sentences:
The paragraph demonstrates organization ➢ A strong typhoon hit some places in Bulacan.
or unity of ideas. The topic sentence which can As a result, many houses and trees were in
be found at the beginning controls the rest of ruins.
the sentences in the paragraph. The succeeding
➢ Studies have shown that a person’s I.Q.
sentences support the main idea in the topic increases with age, therefore, as people grow
sentence. Remember that topic sentence
 older, they become more tolerant and objective in newspapers, diaries, informal essays,
in their thinking comments in social media, and the likes.
Example of using cohesive devices in a
paragraph: Examples of sentences using subjective
tone/language:
There are many simple ways in which we “The film was terrible.”
can help in solving the growing problem of “The operating system isn’t the best one out
garbage disposal within our community. First, there; it’s too slow for most people’s needs.”
bring your own reusable cloth bags instead of “I don’t think that this company cares about
accepting plastic bags from the store. However, what their customers think about them.”
if you forget to bring your cloth bags to the
store, you can ask the person bagging your Objective tone or language focuses on the plain
groceries to use paper bags or boxes instead of facts about a person or object - what is true
plastic bags. Secondly, avoid take-out foods and what can be proven. This kind is often used
which require a lot of packaging. Also, learn how in textbooks, references, science journals,
to segregate wastes that decompose and that researches, newspaper articles, atlases,
can be recycled naturally as fertilizer for encyclopedias, and the likes.
plants. Finally, avoid bottled drinks because
they are a major source of waste in many places. Examples of sentences using objective
Therefore, it is safe to say that being conscious tone/language:
about how your family manages household “The film lasted for one hour and thirty-five
wastes can be of big help in addressing your minutes”.
community’s problem in waste disposal. “The Philippines ranks 110th out of 139
countries in terms of mobile data speed, having
an average of 18.49 megabits per second (Mbps)
3. Language Use as of November 2020.”
The use of an appropriate language is one of “English is one of the official languages of the
the properties of a well-written text. The Philippines and is spoken by more than 14 million
choice of the language should also be suited to Filipinos.”
the target audience or readers.
Language use also covers the writer’s tone The writer has to decide the language and tone
of writing: subjective or objective. The of writing depending on its purpose.
subjective tone of writing uses the writer’s
personal biases and judgment. On the other 4. Mechanics
hand, objective tone of writing uses factual The mechanics is the overall characteristic
information and arguments. of the written text. According to Nordquist
(2020), writing mechanics are conventions
A subjective tone focuses on the attitudes, governing the technical aspects of writing,
thoughts, feelings, values, or beliefs of the including spelling, punctuation, capitalization,
writer or speaker. This kind of language and abbreviation.
contains judgments, interpretations, A. Spelling
evaluations, or opinions. Usually, this tone of In writing, spelling is the correct
writing can be found on blogs, opinions/columns arrangement of letters that form words. To
 improve spelling skills, you can use a memory grammar and mechanics is required to clearly
device known as mnemonics. This is done by communicate one’s ideas in paper.
using phrase, acronym, or pattern to
remember something like the spelling of a
word. You can also increase your reading
skills by making a list of commonly
misspelled words or by marking words in a
dictionary that seem to give you trouble
repeatedly.
B. Punctuation
It is a set of marks used to regulate
texts and clarify their meanings, mainly by
separating or linking words, phrases, and
clauses. The standard English punctuation is
as follows” period, comma, apostrophe,
quotations, question mark, exclamation
mark, brackets, braces, parenthesis, dash,
hyphen, ellipsis, colon and semicolon.
C. Capitalization
It is the practice of using capital
letters in writing or printing. Proper nouns,
key words in titles, and beginnings of
sentences are generally capitalized. The
pronoun “I” is capitalized under all
circumstances.
D. Abbreviation
It is a shortened form of a word or
phrase.
Examples:
USA- United States of America
VIP- Very Important Person
BTECH- Baliwag Polytechnic College
STEM- Science, Technology, Engineering,
and Mathematics

5. Grammar and Mechanics

While mechanics refers to the rules of
written language such as capitalization,
punctuation, spelling, and abbreviation;
grammar, on the other hand, is the structure of
written and spoken language. Grammar refers
to the parts of speech and how they combine to
form sentences. An understanding of both