Borrowed without change from Latin, this word surprisingly first meant 'hearth' or 'fireplace' (compare fellow derivatives FOYER and FUEL)-in other words, that central point from which heat and light radiate throughout a structure. It may be profitable to think of focus in terms of its original meaning. Generally, it means instructing the reader on how to read our discourse. It may mean inserting transitional words and phrases, or creating parallelism so that the reader can see at a glance that a pair of elements carry the same weight, or rearranging material within a sentence so that the reader gets an accurate sense of what’s important and what’s not. Revising for coherence means going back to the draft with the reader's needs in mind. Usually when we write rough drafts, we are concerned mainly with getting our thoughts on paper, not with making sure that they interconnect well so that a reader can process our reasoning easily.

Revising to Make Language More InclusiveĬoherence describes the way that the elements in our sentences and paragraphs hang together to produce meaning.

Revising to Make More Effective Use of Quotations.

Geography of an Issues and Exploration Paper.Types of College Writing Toggle Dropdown.Writing Courses Beyond First-Year English.Placement in First-Year Writing Courses.The Writing Scene at Guilford College Toggle Dropdown.A Proposed Categorization of the Academic Writer's Responsibilities.

How College Writing is Different Toggle Dropdown.

Samples for coherence writing