Writing week five

Paragraph cohesion

Discussion

In order to effectively communicate ideas, is it a writer's responsibility to write clearly or the reader's responsibility to understand? In other words, should the writer or the reader make more of the effort?
Can you think of a situation where you read the same thing many times over because you couldn't understand what the text was saying, even though you recognised all the individual words?

Glossary

Cohesion - if there is cohesion among a group of people, a set of ideas etc, all the parts or members of it are connected or related in a reasonable way to form a whole
Paragraph - a group of several related sentences in a piece of writing, with the first sentence beginning on a new line

Language analysis: what makes a text flow?

Over the next two weeks we'll be looking at writing strategies to make your texts easier for an audience to read. We're working with the premise discussed above: that it is the writer's responsibility to communicate clearly and concisely, to structure your ideas logically, to create connections throughout your text using a range of cohesive devices, and just generally to make people want to read what you've written. There are several advantages to this, not least of which is that whoever's marking your essays is likely to be more sympathetic to language that he or she doesn't have to struggle to comprehend. We want the reader's experience of your work to be like floating down a river being carried along by the current, not wading through a muddy pond in heavy boots.

Warning: avoid academic overload

In previous lessons we've talked about using nominalisation, passive constructions and prestige lexis to help us talk about abstract concepts and ideas more precisely. However, as we develop as writers we need to be careful not to overuse these techniques. An over-reliance on the abstract leads to sentences like:

epistemological claims privileging the reification of an ontology of false conditions resultant of hegemonic post-enlightenment discourse defies the obliteration of the subject object delineation in the totally administered society.

If you have no idea what that means, don't worry; it doesn't mean anything. It's a word salad of stock phrases from the field of critical theory. The point is that it's possible to create formidable sounding academic prose which follows all the rules of English grammar and is still utterly meaningless. Academic writing is particularly susceptible to self-absorbed commentary of this kind. As such, cohesion ultimately is about is the clarity of your communication. One of the priorities at all times on this writing course is to consider your reader and write as clearly as possible.

While you're thinking about that, have some fun with the Gobbledygook generator courtesy of the Plain English Campaign.

Language analysis - paragraph cohesion

One of the simplest and most important ways of making our writing easy to read is to think about organising everything we want to say into paragraphs. We're going to start by making sure each paragraph has a topic sentence which introduces the content, and that each paragraph has unity, which means that it looks at just one topic or idea at a time. The metaphor of choice is a sandwich: think of the topic and concluding sentences as the bread. While the pepperoni, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes might be why you bought/made it in the first place, without the bread, you'd be denied the rich and satisfying experience that we've come to expect from sandwiches.

Task one - Topic Sentences

Below is an example of a paragraph that we might find in an essay question: To what extent does ethical consumerism limit economic growth? Read the paragraph and then select the best topic sentence from the three options:

Firstly, intangible value is better than actual value.
Pinker (2018) points out that more efficient production techniques have contributed to the fact that demand for raw materials leveled off several years ago.
Economic growth is not necessarily dependent on manufacturing new goods from finite resources.

Example paragraph

[Topic sentence]

This is because the amount people are willing to pay for items is not always connected to how much they cost to make. A great deal of value is subjective or sentimental, and can be driven by emotion rather than practicality. An example of this is the world of art, where cost is determined by how famous the artist was and who else has already owned the art being sold. We call this the intangible, or badge value of a product (Sutherland, 2009), and we can see a similar phenomenon driving the success of second hand supermarkets in Helsinki as highlighted by Harrabin (2018). This understanding of value demonstrates how economic growth can be generated without anything new being produced

Task two - Writing a topic sentence

The paragraph below has no topic sentence. Read the text and come up with a single sentence that introduces the rest of the paragraph.

For example, consumerism allows businesses to thrive which generates tax revenue for public services. Schools and hospitals are funded from money generated by the sale of goods. Furthermore, a consumer market drives competition which in turn leads to innovation. A great deal of smart technology which we now take for granted has enhanced the lives of millions by improving communication links and access to information. Finally, economic prosperity is a tide which lifts all boats. Countries can be raised out of poverty by nurturing a consumer driven economic infrastructure. Overall, it is clear that there are many benefits to consumer culture.

Does consumerism help society?

Task three - Paragraph unity

Look at the two paragraphs below and decide which is the most unified, in that the ideas presented are relevant to the main topic.

Paragraph 1

Ethical consumerism may damage economic growth by limiting consumption. Many industries, such as the mobile phone sector, are dependent on a constant level of new sales to fund innovation and development. These industries generate billions of dollars each year because most users upgrade their handset every one to two years. One new industry that may benefit from this is that of modular handsets such as the Fairphone, where users upgrade one part at a time to extend the lifespan of the phone. The parts are also ethically sourced, which lowers the environmental impact. Innovations such as modular phones and up-cycling old handsets are an example of ethical consumerism.

Paragraph 2

Ethical consumerism may damage economic growth by limiting consumption. Many industries, such as the mobile phone sector, are dependent on a constant level of new sales to fund innovation and development. These industries generate billions of dollars each year because most users upgrade their handset every one to two years. If this constant flow of trade slowed down due to increased ethical awareness of over-consumption, many jobs would be put at risk and technological innovation would slow down. If this change in consumer behaviour spread to other industries, economic growth could be endangered, which would in turn affect levels of disposable income and living standards.

Language analysis - Transition words, phrases and clauses

In addition to a clear topic sentence, the first line of your paragraph can often benefit from some transition language. This is a word, phrase or clause that tells the reader how the information to come relates to that which was discussed in the previous paragraph.

Transition words

You're probably already familiar with these types of words: furthermore, in addition, moreover if you're building on a previous point. By contrast, however, nevertheless if you're looking at a contrast. These words work for very short pieces of writing such as in an IELTS exam, but they don't really give much clarity for the reader in longer stretches of text.

Transition phrases

Recall from our study of noun phrases that a phrase is just a group of two or more words that work together as a single unit. In the example above the transition word despite is followed by a noun phrase which summarises the content of the previous paragraph. Other transitions which are followed by noun phrases are in spite of (which also indicates a contrast), in addition to and besides which signal similar ideas.

Transition clauses

A clause is a group of words containing a subject and a verb. In the example above, the dependent clause summarises the previous paragraph, and the subsequent main clause advertises the paragraph to come. The full topic sentence is in the example on the right, where the dependent clause is in blue, the main clause is in red, and the subordinating conjunction is in green.

Transition language is sometimes also referred to as signposting language, because it helps the reader follow the direction of the text.

Transition sentences

Click above to see an example of a transition clause.

Task four - Creating transition links

Connect the ideas in the following paragraphs by adding a transition word, phrase, or clause to the topic sentences of the third, fourth, and fifth paragraphs. Try to vary the transitional linking expressions you use. You may rewrite the topic sentences if necessary. The first one has been done for you as an example.

Nuclear as a Sustainable Energy Source

1) In order to meet carbon emissions targets, countries must determine which of the carbon neutral alternatives to fossil fuels are the most sustainable, reliable, safe and cost effective sources of energy. While large technological strides have been made in renewables such as wind, solar and tidal power, nuclear is also gaining recognition as an important part of future energy mix. However, it must address some issues if it is to gain widespread public and political support.

2) The first problem is safety. After the disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima in 1986 and 2011 respectively, nuclear energy has been treated with a high level of caution, since in both events failures in safety protocols resulted in large scale exposure to radioactive contamination.

3) __________________________ is the possibility that some countries could develop nuclear energy programmes as a pretext to the construction of nuclear weapons.

4) __________________________ there is still no consensus on how to safely dispose of spent nuclear fuel rods which contain hazardous chemicals such as plutonium, which remains deadly for thousands of years.

5)___________________________ nuclear energy is still among the safest forms of energy production when looking at deaths per energy unit produced (Karecha and Hansen, 2013). In fact, it is estimated that nuclear energy production has already saved 1.84 million air pollution related deaths due to the fact that its production does not emit CO2. It is also far more reliable than solar and wind power.

6) In conclusion, nuclear energy has the potential to play a vital part in the reduction of carbon emissions. One way this could be achieved is to invest in Thorium reactors, as Thorium causes less pollution and is more difficult to use in nuclear weapons than traditional Uranium (Kurzgesagt, 2015).

A finished piece of academic writing should have clear links between these sections, and it should be made as explicit as possible how each paragraph contributes to answering the question.

Task five - Planning your writing with mind maps

Mind mapping software is a visual way of planning your paragraph structure. Coggle, XMind and Google's MindMup 2 are free and very easy to use although there are plenty of other free ones available. Use one of them that you like to plan an answer to the question we looked at earlier: to what extent does ethical consumerism limit economic growth? When planning, think about what kind of information you will include, and write a topic/transition sentence for each paragraph.

Save your plan and upload it to Google classrooms for peer editing.

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