Author: metbaseball

Coherence

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Imagine that the bulleted pair of sentences below begins a paragraph:

  • Two adjacent sentences are coherent when there’s a “logical connection” between them.
  • I just ate a banana.

What do they have in common? The first one’s about coherence and is written in third person; the second one’s about an eaten banana and is in first person. There’s no logical connection between them, so they are not coherent.

Coherence is a paragraph’s wheels. A paragraph lacking coherence will never “roll along” smoothly.

Are the next two bulleted sentences coherent?

  • Two adjacent sentences are coherent when there’s a “logical connection” between them.
  • One way to effect coherence is by repeating a word or idea.

One reason why the above two sentences are coherent is because of the repetition of two different forms of “cohere”: coherent and coherence.

Is the repetition of a word, in itself, sufficient to effect coherence? If you answered “yes,” consider the next pair of sentences.

  • The boy walked his dog.
  • The old man likes to walk every day.

The sentences share a form of “walk,” yet they could easily be discrete events with the subjects complete strangers. The boy could live in London, the man in Minneapolis.

Four Steps in Revising Your Writing

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  1. The first step in revising something you wrote is to reread it — carefully. (It helps to read it aloud: that brings a second sense into the process.) Does every sentence make sense. Is its meaning crystal-clear? If you’re unsure, either reword or delete the sentence.
  2. Are any sentences wordy? That is, do they have more words than is necessary to convey their meaning?
  3. Do the sentences vary in both length and structure? A sentence can have one of four structures: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex. Writing that contains a mix of those structures is usually more interesting to read.
  4. Finally, check for coherence. Two adjacent sentences are coherent if there’s a logical connection between them. According to Barbara Fine Clouse in her text, Patterns for a Purpose (5th ed.), coherence can be effected by (a) using a transitional word or phrase, (b) repeating a word or idea, (c) using a synonym as a connector, and (d) writing sentences that either “look backward” or “look forward” (77-79).

A Review of Clauses

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In review, an independent clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb, and expresses a complete thought, which enables it to stand alone as a sentence; whereas, a dependent clause is a group of words that, though it contains a subject and a verb, does not express a complete thought because it begins with a subordinating conjunction.

Here are the types of sentences that can be constructed from independent and dependent clauses.

  • A simple sentence contains one independent clause.
    • She threw the ball.
  • A compound sentence contains at least two independent clauses.
    • She threw the ball, and he caught it.
  • A complex sentence contains one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.
    • When she threw the ball to him, he dropped it.
    • When she threw the ball, he dropped it because he lost it in the sun.
  • A compound-complex sentence contains at least two independent clauses and at least one dependent clause.
    • He wanted to ask her to go to the dance when he saw her yesterday, but he was too nervous.

Complex Sentences

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A complex sentence contains both an independent clause and at least one dependent clause.

Example: After she ate the spaghetti, she went for a walk.

The dependent clause can either precede or follow the independent clause. In the above example, it precedes it. In the next example, it follows it.

Example: She went for a walk after she ate the spaghetti.

Rule: When the dependent clause precedes the independent clause, the dependent clause needs to end with a comma; however, when the dependent clause follows the independent clause, the independent clause is not followed by a comma.

In addition, one dependent clause can precede the independent clause and another can follow it.

Example: After the batter struck out, he threw the bat into the stands because his strikeout cost his team the pennant.

Test your skill:
(The following questions are for the example immediately above.)

1. What’s the subject of the first dependent clause?
2. What’s the verb in the second dependent clause?
3. What is the subject and verb in the independent clause?

The answers will be in the next grammar post.