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Need help with Coherence and Cohesion? Watch my bite-sized YouTube Video, or read the transcript below.
In the IELTS Writing Band Descriptors, Coherence and Cohesion is one of the four criteria that they grade you on (the others are Task Achievement, Lexical Resource and Grammatical Range and Accuracy).
So what does ‘Coherence and Cohesion’ mean? And what is the difference between them? Here is my very simple guide.
Coherence – This is the big picture, the skeleton, the external framework.
Cohesion – These are all the little things which hold the framework together internally.
Let’s look at the framework first and see what you need to get Band 5, 6 and 7.
The Band Descriptors also talk about showing progression, being logical and being organised:
So COHERENCE is all about logic, making sense, progression of ideas leading towards the conclusion, clear paragraphs and organization.
That is the framework, the skeleton, the big picture
Now let’s compare that to the little things which hold your writing together.
So what are these linking devices?
I’ve divided them into 3 types,
1. Telling the reader what you’re doing
2. Extending your main points to help strengthen your arguments.
3. Avoiding repetition
So let’s have a look now at what this translates as in a real essay (please watch from this point in the video).
This essay is all about zoos. I’ve simplified it to help you see that when we’re talking about coherence or the big picture, the skeleton, the framework.
You can see that there are five logical paragraphs. Each paragraph tells the reader what the writer is doing and it’s very easy to follow.
Now look at the second example. All of the words in red (in the video) are the the linkers:
So hopefully you can see the difference between those cohesive devices and the paragraphing and logic and organization needed for coherence.
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