By: Gabriel Winer & Elizabeth Wadell; Berkeley City College & Laney College via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI)
Cohesion describes how well your writing "sticks" together, just like screws and hinges hold together the parts of a door together.
If your writing has cohesion, your readers will easily be able to understand not only each sentence, but also the main idea.
In this chapter, we will look at five ways of creating cohesion within paragraphs. Feel free to follow the links for more in-depth information about each cohesion method.
Transitions
Transition words are the most common ways of creating cohesion, and you probably already use them in your writing. These words how your readers the clear connection between sentences. They help readers to understand why you are connecting two sentences in a certain way. Are you introducing more information, a contrast, or a result? Let the reader know by using a clear transition word.
See 6.6: Language Toolkits for more transition words to use.
Transition words are most often used at the beginning of a sentence, and are always followed by a comma.
Lastly, I have two words of warning about transition words. First, don't always use the same transition words, since that sounds repetitive. In addition, don't start every sentence in the paragraph with transition words as that will get boring for the reader. For example, I probably used too many transition words in this paragraph! To sum up, transitions are a good tool to use, but they should not be the only way of building cohesion.
In speaking and casual writing, we often start sentences with FANBOYS or coordinating conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so). However, in academic writing, try to avoid starting sentences with FANBOYS. In Table 2.7.1 we look at 3 of the FANBOYS and the more academic transition words we could use instead.
Purpose: Add more of the same type of information
Transition words that can replace this FANBOY:
Moreover,
Furthermore,
In addition,
Also,
Example Sentence: New stereotypes are being created from world events all the time. Furthermore, they become even more problematic when people harm others based on these stereotypes.
Purpose: Show contrast
Transition words that can replace this FANBOY:
However,
Nevertheless,
On the contrary,
On the other hand,
Example sentence: While her roommate had a single story about African people, Adichie had a negative stereotype about Mexicans because she heard an “endless story” of news coverage of desperate immigrants crossing the U.S. border illegally and scamming the healthcare system. However, she changed her perspective when she visited Mexico and she realized that Mexicans are hard-working and happy too.
Purpose: Show a result
Transition words that can replace this FANBOY:
Thus,
Therefore,
As a result,
Consequently,
Hence,
Example sentence: Adichie’s roommate only knew “one story” about people from Africa. As a result, she was surprised Adichie could speak English and knew how to use a stove.
"2.7: Cohesion and Transition Words" is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Gabriel Winer & Elizabeth Wadell (ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI)). Adapted by Laura Paciorek.