Cohesion (Part 1): Improve writing &

speaking
What is really important in both spoken and written English, and is 25% of your writing
mark at RMIT Training? The answer is: Organisation and Cohesion!

What does that mean?

Well, basically it means that your words and ideas 'flow' together nicely and are easy to
follow. Imagine going down a nice river where there's lots of water... without water
(cohesive devices), it would be terrible! But with water, it feels smooth and consistent.
This is how your writing and speaking feels to someone when you have cohesion.

How can I make my words flow?

There are two main ways, and this is why we use the two words, organisation and
cohesion, at REW.

Organisation
Organisation, also known as 'coherence', is basically three things:

• Your ideas are logically organised.

• You have paragraphs.
• Your writing or speaking is in an appropriate structure for the task with
appropriate sections.

We'll look at organisation in more detail another day, but today we'll stop there with it
because we're focusing on the other half of what makes your writing and speaking flow:
cohesion.

Cohesion
Cohesion literally means 'sticking together', and it's a term from the field of physics that
refers to the way water molecules stick to each other. In English, it refers to the way we
use 'cohesive devices' to stick our ideas and words together so they flow. Cohesive
devices have different definitions, but at REW we mean special words or phrases that
do this job or things that we do to connect our ideas. In other words, it's how we use
words or grammar to connect everything in our writing and speaking.

In this post, we'll learn the names of some cohesive devices and rules for their usage. If
you need more practice on any of them, you can do a google search of the name +
'practice', or refer to the links at the end of this article. But first, let's think about
cohesion - is it the same in all cultures? The answer is... not really. Let's see why.

Cultural differences
In English, we like everything to be connected because the way information is
communicated is direct and explicit (very clear), so everything builds on what came
before it. This is due to the culture, which values clear, well-organised communication
where all details are explained.

In Asian, Middle Eastern, Turkish, and Latin American cultures, this isn't done as much.
Sentences aren't connected as often with cohesive devices because the person
receiving the message, i.e. reading or listening, makes the connections in their head. In
other words, the writer or speaker is not responsible for making the message clear; the
reader or listener is. In these cultures, it might be insulting or rude to explain something
very clearly because it might mean that you think the other person is stupid. This means
that communication is often 'implicit' (suggested rather than clearly communicated) or
indirect.

However, in English-speaking cultures, it's the opposite. You need to constantly connect
your words and ideas with different cohesive devices because the person writing or
speaking is responsible for making the message clear, not the listener or reader. This
means that if you don't connect everything very clearly, you are wasting the reader or
listener's time by being unclear about your message.
What are cohesive devices?
We saw earlier that 'cohesive devices' can refer to grammar or words we use to make
our language flow. Some cohesive devices do this by:

• referring to other words in a text

• replacing words in a text
• connecting information together
• deleting words that we don't need to repeat

Here are some commonly used ones called determiners, which can do the first two
things from that list. All of these can go before a noun unless it's an uncountable or
abstract noun.