Coherence in Essay Writing

COHERENCE IN ESSAY WRITING

Literally, the word coherence which means “sticking together” has the sense that each paragraph in the essay is easy to read and understand because its supporting sentences are in some kind of logical order, and use appropriate transitional signals. A paragraph is coherent when the sentences are woven together in such a way that the reader can move easily from one sentence to the next and read the paragraph as an integrated whole, rather than as a series of separate sentences (McCrimmon, 1980). He, further, states that most of the incoherent paragraphs come from thinking out the implications of one topic sentence at a time, without considering the relationships among the sentences. This condition creates the sense the writing becomes not smooth.

Coherence is fundamental to clarity and makes greatest demands on a writer to think and write clearly. In formulating her/his ideas, a writer must discover words and syntactic structure to express them so that they symbolize the conceptual structure of her/his thinking. So the text is to be easy to read, she/he must direct the readers from one idea, from one sentence, to another. Her/his text must have a quality in which there is a match between expectation and actuality, allowing readers to predict what will come next.

The study of coherence is increasing nowadays. Though, its concept is not well understood and has been variously interpreted. Harjanto (1999:47) identified there are at least two competing orientations of coherence: one that highlights the reader’s communication with the text and one that focuses on the text itself. The former orientation emphasizes that a coherent text is the one in which the expectations of the readers are completed; while the latter asserts that coherence is the role of the text itself. The previous orientation affirms that a coherent text is the one in which the expectations of the readers are fulfilled; while the latter maintains that coherence is the function of the text itself. De Beaugrande and Dressler (1984:84) argued that coherence is based on upon “a continuity of senses among the knowledge activated by the expression of the text”. Furthermore, Brown and Yule viewed coherence as related to the reader’s interpretation of linguistic messages. The later orientation analyzes that the discussion of coherence of linguistic messages. The latter orientation argues that the discussion of coherence is a part of the discussion of the function of the text itself (Connor and Johns, 1990).

The two orientations, however, share the same idea that a certain number of surface signals, semantic coherence as well as signals of surface cohesion, in discourse is necessary for ease of reading (Connor and Johns, 1990). Considering their agreement and the nature of this study, coherence in this study is defined, following de Beaugrande and Dessler (1984), as the process which ensure conceptual activity, including (1) logical relations, (2) organization of events, objects, and situations, and (3) continuity human experience. In other words, coherence is the ordering of words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and so forth, so that they develop a closely reasoned, logical, line of thought, both within and between units.

To conclude, coherence has significant influence in writing the essay. It is another element to have the good essay writing. In order to have coherence in essay writing, the movement from one sentence to the next (and in essays, from one paragraph to the next) must be logical and smooth. There must be no sudden jumps. Each sentence and paragraph should flow smoothly into the next ones.