Unit 5 · Topic 5.2

5.2 Coherence within sentences, paragraphs and whole texts

Writing is coherent when each idea connects logically to the next: clause to clause within a sentence, sentence to sentence within a paragraph, and paragraph to paragraph across a text. The exam's writing questions often ask you to add, cut or move a sentence to keep a passage on track.

Key terms

coherence
cohesion
unity
sequence

Coherence at three levels

Level	What connects	Example of a break (written for this page)
Sentence	One clause to the next	The bus was late, and the library has new chairs.
Paragraph	One sentence to the next	A paragraph about bus delays that suddenly mentions the cafeteria menu
Whole text	One paragraph to the next	An essay that jumps from cost to safety and back to cost with no signal

Unity and coherence

Two related ideas help here. Unity means everything in a paragraph supports the same main point; a sentence that wanders to another topic breaks unity. Coherence means the connections between sentences are clear, so readers can tell how each idea relates to the one before. A paragraph can be unified but incoherent (every sentence is on topic, but they're in a confusing order), or coherent at a small scale but not unified (each sentence follows from the last, but the paragraph drifts away from its point).

You may also see the word cohesion. It refers to the visible links between sentences, such as repeated words, pronouns and transitions. Cohesion is one of the main ways writers build coherence, and topics 5.3 and 5.4 cover those links in detail.

How the exam tests coherence

The writing questions present a short draft, written by a student or other writer, with numbered sentences. Questions ask things like: Should the writer add this sentence here? Which sentence should be deleted? Where should sentence 6 go? The answer choices usually include a reason: "Yes, because it provides an example of..." or "No, because it shifts the focus to..."

To answer well, figure out the writer's purpose for the paragraph first. Then ask whether the sentence in question serves that purpose and connects to the sentences around it. Interesting but off-topic information should go, even if it's true.

Repair moves

Cut sentences that drift away from the paragraph's point.
Reorder sentences so general claims come before specific support, or causes before effects.
Add a bridging sentence when the jump between two ideas is too big.
Use transitions and repeated key words to make connections visible (see 5.3 and 5.4).
Check that each paragraph's first sentence connects to the end of the paragraph before it.

Worked examples

Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.

Example 1
A writing-section style coherence question
Practice draft (written for this page): (1) Community gardens can help neighborhoods that lack grocery stores. (2) In many such areas, the nearest supermarket is miles away. (3) A garden on an empty lot puts fresh vegetables within walking distance. (4) Tomatoes were first grown in South America. (5) Gardens also give neighbors a reason to meet and work together. (6) As a result, residents who once had to rely on corner stores can add fresh produce to their meals. The writer wants the paragraph to focus on how gardens improve access to fresh food. Which sentence should be deleted, and which sentence is out of place?
Show the solutionHide the solution
1. Step 1: State the paragraph's purpose: gardens improve access to fresh food.
2. Step 2: Check each sentence against it. Sentence 4 is a true fact about tomatoes, but it has nothing to do with access. It breaks unity, so delete it.
3. Step 3: Check the order. Sentence 6 begins "As a result" and describes better access to produce, which is the result of sentence 3, not of sentence 5's point about neighbors meeting.
4. Step 4: Fix: move sentence 6 so it follows sentence 3. Sentence 5 then works as a final, secondary benefit, or could be cut if the writer wants a strict focus on food.
Answer: Delete sentence 4, because it shifts the focus from food access to the history of tomatoes. Move sentence 6 to follow sentence 3, because "As a result" refers to the garden putting vegetables within walking distance, not to neighbors working together.

Common mistakes

Keeping a sentence because it's interesting or true, even though it doesn't serve the paragraph's purpose.
Choosing an answer because it "sounds better" without checking the reason given in the answer choice.
Ignoring the question's statement of the writer's goal, which usually decides the answer.
Fixing coherence in your own essay by adding "Also" to every sentence instead of making the logical connection clear.

On the exam

In writing questions, read the stated goal ("The writer wants to...") before looking at the choices. The right answer serves that goal.
When an answer choice says "Yes, because..." or "No, because...," check that the reason is accurate. A correct yes or no with a wrong reason is still a wrong answer.

Connected topics

Videos

AP English Language Exam: Multiple-Choice Writing Section
Marco LearningWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Make Your Writing Flow | Ideas: Cohesion, Coherence, and Organization
Writing with AndrewWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Coherence and Cohesion in Academic Writing
EAPFoundation.comWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
The Difference Between Coherence And Cohesion In Writing
My English PagesWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Coherence in Writing
Mometrix AcademyWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Check yourself

4 questions on 5.2 Coherence within sentences, paragraphs and whole texts. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.

(1) A personal finance course would prepare students for decisions they will face soon after graduation. (2) Within a year or two, many students will sign a lease, open a credit card or take out a student loan. (3) Few of them will have learned how interest works or how to read the fine print. (4) The school's soccer team won the regional championship last fall. (5) A semester-long course could teach these skills before students need them, not after a costly mistake.

(6) A personal finance course would help students make good financial decisions. (7) Some teachers worry that the schedule is already too full. (8) The course could replace one semester of the current elective requirement, so students would not need to give up a core class.

Written for this practice set: two body paragraphs from a student's draft of a proposal to the school board.

Question 1 of 4

Which sentence should be deleted to improve the coherence of paragraph 1?

Question 2 of 4

The writer wants to add the following sentence to paragraph 1. "Last year, a senior at our school signed a phone contract without realizing the price doubled after six months." Where would it best be placed?

(1) Our school owns an empty lot behind the gym. (2) It is covered in weeds and broken glass. (3) The student council wants to turn the lot into a community garden. (4) A garden would give science classes a place to study plants, give the cafeteria fresh vegetables and neighbors could meet there.

(5) Teachers have already shown interest. (6) Ms. Ortega's biology class could test soil and track plant growth. (7) Mr. Dean's cooking class could use the harvest in recipes. (8) They both said they would help plan it.

(9) Gardens take work, and summer is the hardest season. (10) Without volunteers, the beds could dry out in July. (11) The council has a plan for this problem. (12) Families could sign up for one week each.

Written for this practice set: a student's draft of a proposal from the student council.

Question 3 of 4

The writer wants to combine sentences 11 and 12 so that the link between them is clear. Which version is most effective?

It is surely beyond a doubt that people should be a good deal idle in youth. For though here and there a Lord Macaulay may escape from school honours with all his wits about him, most boys pay so dear for their medals that they never afterwards have a shot in their locker, and begin the world bankrupt. And the same holds true during all the time a lad is educating himself, or suffering others to educate him. It must have been a very foolish old gentleman who addressed Johnson at Oxford in these words: “Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task.” The old gentleman seems to have been unaware that many other things besides reading grow irksome, and not a few become impossible, by the time a man has to use spectacles and cannot walk without a stick. Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life. It seems a pity to sit, like the Lady of Shalott, peering into a mirror, with your back turned on all the bustle and glamour of reality. And if a man reads very hard, as the old anecdote reminds us, he will have little time for thought.

If you look back on your own education, I am sure it will not be the full, vivid, instructive hours of truantry that you regret; you would rather cancel some lack-lustre periods between sleep and waking in the class. For my own part, I have attended a good many lectures in my time. I still remember that the spinning of a top is a case of Kinetic Stability. I still remember that Emphyteusis is not a disease, nor Stillicide a crime. But though I would not willingly part with such scraps of science, I do not set the same store by them as by certain other odds and ends that I came by in the open street while I was playing truant. This is not the moment to dilate on that mighty place of education, which was the favourite school of Dickens and of Balzac, and turns out yearly many inglorious masters in the Science of the Aspects of Life. Suffice it to say this: if a lad does not learn in the streets, it is because he has no faculty of learning. Nor is the truant always in the streets, for if he prefers, he may go out by the gardened suburbs into the country. He may pitch on some tuft of lilacs over a burn, and smoke innumerable pipes to the tune of the water on the stones. A bird will sing in the thicket. And there he may fall into a vein of kindly thought, and see things in a new perspective. Why, if this be not education, what is?

Robert Louis Stevenson, "An Apology for Idlers" (1877), collected in Virginibus Puerisque (1881). An "apology" here means a defense. Lord Macaulay was a famous historian who won top honors at school; the Lady of Shalott, from a poem by Tennyson, sees the world only in a mirror. A "burn" is a stream.

Question 4 of 4

Which of the following best describes how paragraph 2 develops paragraph 1?

0 of 4 answered