محمد شاهر
مشرف ومراسل السنة الأولى
عدد الرسائل : 1981
الدولة : Syria
الكلية : Faculty of Arts
السـنة الدراسية : second
النشاط : 2739
تاريخ التسجيل : 10/02/2011
 |  موضوع: تعبير و استيعاب part2  2011-05-24, 02:27 | |
| Coherenceand Unity In this lesson:
Coherence refers to a certain characteristic or aspect of
writing. Literally, the word means "to stick together." Coherence in
writing means that all the ideas in a paragraph flow smoothly from one sentence to the next
sentence. With coherence, the reader has an easy time understanding the ideas
that you wish to express.
Consider the paragraph that we studied in Lesson #1:
My hometown is famous for several amazing natural
features. First, it
is noted for the Wheaton
River, which is very
wide and beautiful. On either side of this
river, which is 175 feet wide, are many willow trees which have
long branches that can move gracefully in the wind. In autumn the
leaves of these trees fall and cover
the riverbanks like golden snow. Second,
on the other side of the town is Wheaton Hill, which is unusual because it
is very steep. Even though it is steep, climbing this hill is not dangerous, because there are
some firm rocks along the sides that can be used as stairs. There are
no trees around this hill, so it
stands clearly against the sky and can be seen from many miles away. The third amazing feature
is the Big Old Tree. This tree stands two hundred feet tall and is probably
about six hundred years old. These
three landmarks are truly amazing and make my hometown a famous
place.
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Major Connectors
Look at the words in bold font. Do you see
how they help guide the reader? For example, consider the words, First,
Second, and The third amazing feature. We can call these words major
connectors. Major connectors help organize the main parts of your
paragraph. This paragraph has three main parts: (1) a part about the Wheaton River, (2) a part about Wheaton Hill,
and (3) a part about the Big Old Tree. Another way of saying this is that
this paragraph has three main points which are indicated by the major
connectors. Using such major connectors is an important way of providing coherence
in a paragraph.
Minor Connectors
What about the other words in bold, such as
those appearing in the phrases "these trees" and "this
hill"? We can call these minor connectors. Minor connectors
provide coherence to a paragraph by connecting sentences within each
of the main parts of your paragraph. That is, when you write about your main
points, you can use minor connectors to link your details to each main point.
Now, look at this paragraph. Can you identify the
main points?
Each of the U.S. manned space exploration
projects had specific major goals. The Mercury project was
designed to test whether or not human beings could survive and function in
outer space. The Mercury project tested rockets with the new Mercury space
capsule, which could hold one person. The Gemini project was intended to
find out whether two people could work in the weightless environment of
space. Gemini astronauts took "spacewalks." They floated outside
their spacecraft in a spacesuit, connected to it by a tether. Gemini
astronauts tried out new flying skills. Some astronauts flew two spacecraft
extremely close together; this procedure was called "rendezvous."
On some Gemini flights, astronauts physically linked two spacecraft
together. Linking, or "space docking," was a major goal of the
Gemini program. The Apollo project, with three astronauts, was intended to
test spacecraft and skills so that people could actually fly to the Moon
and land on it. Performing scientific experiments on the lunar surface and
collecting rocks for study on Earth were goals.
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Was this paragraph a little confusing to read? Now consider the same
paragraph with a few changes:
Each
of the U.S.
manned space exploration projects had specific major goals. For example, the Mercury project was
designed to test whether or not human beings could survive and function in
outer space. In addition,
the Mercury project tested rockets with the new Mercury space capsule,
which could hold one person. As
another example, the Gemini
project was intended to find out whether two people could work in the
weightless environment of space. One way
of doing this was by having Gemini astronauts take
"spacewalks." That is,
they floated outside their spacecraft in a spacesuit, connected to it by a
tether. Gemini astronauts also
tried out new flying skills. For example,
some astronauts flew two spacecraft extremely close together; this
procedure was called "rendezvous." On some Gemini flights,
astronauts physically linked two spacecraft together. This linking,
or "space docking," was a major goal of the Gemini program. Finally, the Apollo project, with
three astronauts, had the goal of testing spacecraft and skills so that
people could actually fly to the Moon and land on it. Other goals included performing
scientific experiments on the lunar surface and collecting rocks for study
on Earth.
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Do you see which of the connectors above are major
and which are minor? The major
ones are For example in the second sentence, which introduces the
first supporting point (the Mercury program); As another example,
which begins the second main point (the Gemini program); and the word Finally,
which introduces the third and last main point (the Apollo moon program). (In
the paragraph above, all of the major connectors are underlined.)
As for the minor
connectors, we can divide them into three groups. The first group of minor
connectors provides coherence for the first main point (the Mercury program).
There is only one minor connector in this first group, In addition,
although it is possible to have more than one, depending on how many details
you have to support your first main point.
The second group of minor connectors consists of That
is, also, and also the phrase For example in the sentence,
"For example, some astronauts..." Notice that this last minor
connector is the same as the major connector at the beginning of the
paragraph. However, the function of each is different, depending on the
meaning of the sentences.
The third group of minor connectors in this
particular paragraph also has one member, which is Other goals
included....
Here is a table of a few common connectors (also
called transitions):
For example,
For instance,
One example of (this) is
First, Second, Third, etc.
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As another example,
Another example of [xxx] is (that)
Finally,
In conclusion,
To summarize,
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On the one hand,
On the other hand,
However,
..., but...
also
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Paragraph Unity
Unity is a very
important characteristic of good paragraph writing. Paragraph unity means
that one paragraph is about ONLY ONE main topic.
That is, all the sentences -- the topic, supporting sentences, the detail
sentences, and (sometimes) the concluding sentence -- are all telling the
reader about ONE main topic. If your paragraph contains a sentence or some
sentences that are NOT related to the main topic, then we say that the
paragraph "lacks unity," or
that the sentence is "off-topic."
Look at the following paragraph, which is similar to
the paragraph that we have studied above. Does it have perfect unity? Try to
find the sentence that is off-topic:
Each
of the Russian manned space exploration projects had specific major goals.
For example, the Vostok project was
designed to test whether or not human beings could survive and function in
outer space. For another example, the Voshkhod project was intended to find
out whether people could work in the weightless environment of space. One
Voshkhod cosmonaut experimented with weightlessness by taking a
"spacewalk." That is, he floated in a spacesuit outside his
Voshkhod spacecraft, connected to it by a tether. The cosmonaut to do this
was Alexei Leonov. Several weeks later, Leonov's spacewalk was followed by
that of U.S. astronaut Ed White. Finally, the Soyuz project, with three
cosmonauts, had goals of testing spacecraft and spaceflight skills so that
people could fly long missions in Earth orbit.
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This paragraph is generally good, but the sentence, Several
weeks later, Leonov's spacewalk was followed by that of U.S.
astronaut Ed White, does not have anything to do with the major goals of
the various Russian space projects. That is, it is an "off-topic"
sentence, so we can say that the paragraph somewhat lacks unity. In order to
improve the paragraph, we should omit this sentence, even though it is
historically accurate.
If you
feel you have understood this lecture, click here to go to Exercise #2a
Click here
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