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
Some identity showing devices
Some contrast showing devices
Some emphasis showing devices
Some example showing devices
Some result showing devices
Some simplification devices
Some qualifying devices
Don't forget to check the followings: