COHERENT PARAGRAPH

By: Ridwan Sa'at

Before we talk about what an essay is, we need to be sure that we can compose a good and coherent paragraph.

So what is coherence in a paragraph?

We can say a paragraph is a coherent paragraph when the flow of the ideas in the paragraph is easily understood as they are connected to each other correctly and smoothly. 

A good paragraph should also be showing unity. What is unity in paragraph? It is that the paragraph also describes or discusses one topic or main idea. All supporting sentences and concluding sentences are related to the topic. There is no point beyond the topic of the paragraph. 

To make a paragraph coherent we need to know how to relates ideas in the paragraph. We can do this by using what we call grammatical links and logical links. 

What are logical links:

Logical links are words which could be coordinate conjunction, subbordinate conjunction or introductory adverbs:

1. Coordinate conjunctions: and, or, yet, but, nor, so,
    for

2. Subbordinate conjunctions: because, since, while,
    but, despite, when etc.

3. Introductory adverbs: in addition, in contrast, for
    example etc.

What are grammatical links:

Grammatical links include: article (the,a and an), personal pronoun (he, they, this, it, him, us etc.), relative pronouns (that, which, who, where etc.)

Observe these two simple texts:

1. America is composed of 50 states. America is in American continent. America has 350 million people. American has powerful economy. America is a great nation.

2. America is composed of 50 states. This country is in American continent and has 350 million people. With its powerful economy, America has become a great nation.

Which one is easier to read. Certainly the better text will be the second one, right? The flow of the idea about America is easily followed by the  reader. This is because the second text uses varied grammatical and logical links.