A Guide for Coherence and Cohesion in IELTS | IELTS Luminary
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Coherence and Cohesion
in Your IELTS Essay Writing

If your essay is missing of coherence and cohesion, you will lose 25% marks in  IELTS Writing section. Because this is one of the four major criteria for your IELTS Writing score. You can check our detailed explanation on scoring system for a better understanding how your writing will be scored.

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On this page we are going to give you a detailed discussion of coherence and cohesion that you must need in IELTS Writing.

What is coherence and Cohesion

Coherence is a building, where cement composites, concrete, glass, metal, ceramics, and plastics etc. are the building ingredients. These ingredients are called cohesive devices. Proper use of cohesive devices can construct a coherent building. Likewise, in a sentence, there are many words that play the role of building ingredients to construct a coherent sentence.

 

To put simply, if a paragraph is consistent or logically clear, it's called a coherent  paragraph. However, this paragraph cannot be made without the proper use of cohesive devices. That means, just constructing a giant building might be none of use if it's not built following a specific design and appropriate materials. Likewise, a coherent sentence cannot be constructed without the proper use of cohesive devices.​

Take a look at the examples below:

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Example 1: "He is a champion athlete, and the athletes are good in health. Health is important for human life. Human is the most sophisticated species on the Earth.  However, Earth is one of the planets in the solar system."

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In the example above, lexical links and cohesive devices are used to join the sentences. However the missing things are, logical consistency of idea. Just a few sentences are written, they are not conveying any clear idea. This is a paragraph with cohesion, but without coherence. It is like construction materials are applied without a clear design, as a result a house is built that has no windows, doors etc. living requirements. In fact, the house(paragraph) is built with construction materials (cohesive devices), but without a proper design (coherence).

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Now look at the following example which meets the requirements of both coherence and cohesion:

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Example 2: "He is a champion captain. His team won the title 5 times in a row. Because of his amazing captaincy, his fans address him captain fantastic. However, his team lost some important matches as well, though the few losses cannot suppress his overall fantastic impression."

 

After reading the discussion above, hope you understand the importance of coherence and cohesion in your writing. Once you have the idea of coherence and cohesion, you need to know what are the different types of cohesive devices.

 

We have prepared a list of the most important cohesive devices for your IELTS exam. Make sure you go through all the devices below: 

Cohesive Devices

There are so many cohesive devices. They are used according to different contexts. Let's see what are some common cohesive devices and in which contexts they are used:

Some series showing devices

Cohesive Devices, series showing in IELTS Writing

Some identity showing devices

Cohesive Devices, showing identity between two parts in IELTS Writing

Some contrast showing devices

Cohesive Devices, contrast showing in IELTS Writing

Some emphasis showing devices

Cohesive Devices, emphasis showing in IELTS Writing

Some example showing devices

Cohesive Devices, example showing in IELTS Writing

Some result showing devices

Cohesive Devices, result showing in IELTS Writing

Some simplification devices

Cohesive Devices, showing simplification in IELTS Writing

Some qualifying devices

Coherence and Cohesion in IELTS

Don't forget to check the followings:

How to construct a complex sentence

Essential rules for punctuation

Practical use of prepositions

Practical use of Articles

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