Paragraph Unity Paragraph Unity  Coherence and Cohesion.

Coherence: the ideas fit together To be coherent, a paragraph must satisfy two criteria: relevance and effective order. 1.Relevance means that every idea must relate to the topic. 2.Effective order means that the ideas must be arranged in a way depending on the type of paragraphs: chronological ordering (narrative), spatial ordering (descriptive), and logical ordering (exposition).

Chronological order  the SI /items must tell the events of a story in the order that they happened. Descriptive /Spatial order  the SI/ items are described systematically through space. e.g. top to bottom, head to foot, left to right, or front to back Expository/ Logical Order  the SI/items follows a logical order (based on logic or reason).

Read the following two paragraphs and check which one is more coherent. (a) As more and more people are fond of using the cellular phone, experts in communication and scientists in technology have found some of its drawbacks. Spending much time using this cellular phone will gradually destroy our nerve system. Its radiation will gradually damage our sense of hearing, and in the end many people will be hard at hearing when they are not really old yet. It also has been proved that its electronic radiation can cause a brain cancer. Spending more time with this means spending more money for it, thus it will lead to a more consumptive life.

(b) The cellular phone has played an important role in our life today. It has developed so rapidly that the cellular phone we have today can be out of date tomorrow. Companies involving in making this equipment are competing to make their products more sophisticated than others so that they can win the heart of its users. They spend millions of dollars to promote at market their products through various kinds of mass media. The latest models of these products not only provide users to use it for communication but also to use it to take pictures, to videotape events, to listen to the music, and many others. Those who are interested in possessing this equipment keep on buying it and enjoy its facilities.

Cohesion 1.It is one of the factors in making a paragraph or text coherent. 2.It makes all supporting sentences stick together in their support of the topic sentence by using cohesive devices. 3.These cohesive devices include transitions, personal pronouns, the definite article, demonstrative pronouns, synonyms. 4.These devices can make the sentence link up so that readers are not conscious of gaps. 5.These make the idea flow smoothly in the paragraph.

This paragraph lacks cohesion. Make the cohesion better Traveling to a foreign city can be fun, but traveling to a foreign city requires some planning besides getting a passport. You should buy a phrase book and learn a few key phrases in a foreign language. Using phrases demonstrates a willingness to learn about the people who live in a foreign city. Read about a city beforehand. Read about what places in a foreign city you’d like to see. Get a feeling for a foreign city and weather so that you can pack appropriate clothes. Check your camera. Make sure that your camera is in good working order and that you have lots of film. Finally, Get yourself a good pair of walking shoes, and break a good pair of walking shoes in for about a month before you leave. Taking a few precautions before leaving can make your trip to a foreign city more enjoyable.

Traveling to a foreign city can be fun, but it requires some planning besides getting a passport. First, you should buy a phrase book and learn a few key phrases in the foreign language. Using these phrases demonstrates a willingness to learn about the people who live in it. Second, read about the city beforehand and what places in it you’d like to see. Third, get a feeling for the city and its weather so that you can pack appropriate clothes. Next, check your camera. Make sure that it is in good working order and that you have lots of film. Finally, Get yourself a good pair of walking shoes, and break them in for about a month before you leave. In short, taking a few precautions before leaving can make your trip to the foreign city more enjoyable.