4 Cohesion and Coherence Joseph M Williams Stan

4. Cohesion and Coherence (Joseph M. Williams & Stan Fields) Cohesion: when pairs of sentences fit neatly together. Principles of cohesion: 1. Begin sentences with information that is familiar (the ‘topic’ position). 2. End sentences with information readers cannot anticipate (the ‘stress’ position). Some astonishing questions about the nature of the universe have been raised by scientists studying black holes in space. A black hole is created by the collapse of a dead star into a point perhaps no larger than a marble. The TOPIC position Ideally, the topic of a sentence (what the sentence is about) will be its grammatical subject. Not this: It is likely that our proposals will be accepted. This: Our proposals will likely be accepted.

4. Cohesion and Coherence (Joseph M. Williams & Stan Fields) Cohesion: when pairs of sentences fit neatly together. Principles of cohesion: 1. Begin sentences with information that is familiar (the ‘topic’ position). 2. End sentences with information readers cannot anticipate (the ‘stress’ position). Some astonishing questions about the nature of the universe have been raised by scientists studying black holes in space. A black hole is created by the collapse of a dead star into a point perhaps no larger than a marble. The TOPIC position Ideally, the topic of a sentence (what the sentence is about) will be its grammatical subject. Not this: It is likely that our proposals will be accepted. This: Our proposals will likely be accepted.

4. Cohesion and Coherence (Joseph M. Williams & Stan Fields) Cohesion: when pairs of sentences fit neatly together. Principles of cohesion: 1. Begin sentences with information that is familiar (the ‘topic’ position). 2. End sentences with information readers cannot anticipate (the ‘stress’ position). Some astonishing questions about the nature of the universe have been raised by scientists studying black holes in space. A black hole is created by the collapse of a dead star into a point perhaps no larger than a marble. The TOPIC position Ideally, the topic of a sentence (what the sentence is about) will be its grammatical subject. Not this: It is likely that our proposals will be accepted. This: Our proposals will likely be accepted.

4. Cohesion and Coherence (Joseph M. Williams & Stan Fields) Cohesion: when pairs of sentences fit neatly together. Principles of cohesion: 1. Begin sentences with information that is familiar (the ‘topic’ position). 2. End sentences with information readers cannot anticipate (the ‘stress’ position). Some astonishing questions about the nature of the universe have been raised by scientists studying black holes in space. A black hole is created by the collapse of a dead star into a point perhaps no larger than a marble. The TOPIC position Ideally, the topic of a sentence (what the sentence is about) will be its grammatical subject. Not this: It is likely that our proposals will be accepted. This: Our proposals will likely be accepted. Coherence: when all of the individual sentences in a passage support a larger point or claim. Principle of coherence: The topics of each sentence in the passage should constitute a relatively small set of related ideas.

Are the sentences in the following passage cohesive? Is the passage coherent? Saynor, Wisconsin, is the snowmobile capital of the world. The buzzing of snowmobile engines fills the air, and their tanklike tracks crisscross the snow. The snow reminds me of mom’s mashed potatoes, covered with furrows I would draw with my fork. Her mashed potatoes usually make me sick, that’s why I play with them. I like to make a hole in the middle of the potatoes and fill it with melted butter. This behavior has been the subject of long chats between me and my analyst.

Are the sentences in the following passage cohesive? Is the passage coherent? Saynor, Wisconsin, is the snowmobile capital of the world. The buzzing of snowmobile engines fills the air, and their tanklike tracks crisscross the snow. The snow reminds me of mom’s mashed potatoes, covered with furrows I would draw with my fork. Her mashed potatoes usually make me sick, that’s why I play with them. I like to make a hole in the middle of the potatoes and fill it with melted butter. This behavior has been the subject of long chats between me and my analyst. Grammatical subjects: Saynor, Wisconsin; buzzing of snowmobile engines; snow; mashed potatoes; I; This behavior

Are the sentences in the following passage cohesive? Is the passage coherent? Saynor, Wisconsin, is the snowmobile capital of the world. The buzzing of snowmobile engines fills the air, and their tanklike tracks crisscross the snow. The snow reminds me of mom’s mashed potatoes, covered with furrows I would draw with my fork. Her mashed potatoes usually make me sick, that’s why I play with them. I like to make a hole in the middle of the potatoes and fill it with melted butter. This behavior has been the subject of long chats between me and my analyst. Grammatical subjects: Saynor, Wisconsin; buzzing of snowmobile engines; snow; mashed potatoes; I; This behavior Actions: is; fills the air & crisscross the snow; reminds, covered & draw; make me sick & play; like to make a hole & fill it; has been Þ Too many different subjects; too many different actions Þ No coherent theme

Are the sentences in the following passage cohesive? Is the passage coherent? Hypophysectomy (surgical removal of the pituitary) dramatically reduces circulating growth hormone (GH), insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), and thyroid hormones, and can extend life span in rats; these effects are similar to those of the Snell and Ames dwarf mutations in mice, which genetically ablate these pituitary hormones. Dwarf mice out-live normal controls and dwarfs exhibit many forestalled phenotypes of aging. But because these mutations confer lifelong hormonal deficits that slow growth, alter development and prevent reproduction, the relationship of these models to normal mammalian aging has been questioned. Furthermore, if the life span extension of dwarf mice is dependent on developmental abnormalities (especially at the expense of fecundity), clinical relevance of these models is limited. This interplay between development and aging is difficult to assess in mutant dwarf mice; however, age-specific effects can be defined in normal mice using hypophysectomy.

Are the sentences in the following passage cohesive? Is the passage coherent? Hypophysectomy (surgical removal of the pituitary) dramatically reduces circulating growth hormone (GH), insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), and thyroid hormones, and can extend life span in rats; these effects are similar to those of the Snell and Ames dwarf mutations in mice, which genetically ablate these pituitary hormones. Dwarf mice out-live normal controls and dwarfs exhibit many forestalled phenotypes of aging. But because these mutations confer lifelong hormonal deficits that slow growth, alter development and prevent reproduction, the relationship of these models to normal mammalian aging has been questioned. Furthermore, if the life span extension of dwarf mice is dependent on developmental abnormalities (especially at the expense of fecundity), clinical relevance of these models is limited. This interplay between development and aging is difficult to assess in mutant dwarf mice; however, age-specific effects can be defined in normal mice using hypophysectomy. Subjects/topics

Are the sentences in the following passage cohesive? Is the passage coherent? Hypophysectomy (surgical removal of the pituitary) dramatically reduces circulating growth hormone (GH), insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), and thyroid hormones, and can extend life span in rats; these effects are similar to those of the Snell and Ames dwarf mutations in mice, which genetically ablate these pituitary hormones. Dwarf mice out-live normal controls and dwarfs exhibit many forestalled phenotypes of aging. But because these mutations confer lifelong hormonal deficits that slow growth, alter development and prevent reproduction, the relationship of these models to normal mammalian aging has been questioned. Furthermore, if the life span extension of dwarf mice is dependent on developmental abnormalities (especially at the expense of fecundity), clinical relevance of these models is limited. This interplay between development and aging is difficult to assess in mutant dwarf mice; however, age-specific effects can be defined in normal mice using hypophysectomy. Subjects/topics Rewriting to reduce the number of subjects yields: The surgical removal of the pituitary, known as hypophysectomy, dramatically reduces circulating growth hormone (GH), insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), and thyroid hormones, and can extend life span in rats; its effects are similar to those of the mouse Snell and Ames dwarf mutations, which genetically ablate these pituitary hormones. The Dwarf mutations result in mice that out-live normal controls and exhibit many forestalled phenotypes of aging. But these mutations confer lifelong hormonal deficits that slow growth, alter development and prevent reproduction, and thus the mutant mice may be a poor model for mammalian aging. Furthermore, if the dwarf mice live longer solely because of developmental abnormalities and reduced fecundity, their relevance to clinical studies is especially limited. Thus, dwarf mice are not useful to assess the interplay between development and aging, whereas normal mice that have undergone hypophysectomy permit age-specific effects to be defined.

[Winslow Homer] arrived in Manhattan in 1859, at a time when war was breaking out, causing him to go to the front as an illustrator for Harper’s Weekly, the Life of its day. His manner, a plainspoken charm that put soldiers and their officers at ease, would make him a model for today’s embedded journalist. In that first year of the war, his production included a lot of standard wish-fulfillment military scenes, charges and flag-waving resistance, copied implicitly from old battle art. The early, showily Napoleonic phase of the war saw him spending time with the Zouave regiments of the Army of the Potomac, who wore red pantaloons, red fezzes, and blue collarless jackets. (Homer kept the fez, and wore it on occasion throughout his life. ) [Winslow Homer] arrived in Manhattan in 1859 and, when the war broke out, quickly went to the front as an illustrator for Harper’s Weekly, the Life of its day. He was, from the first, a plainspoken man who felt at home with soldiers and their officers — the model of an embedded journalist. In that first year of the war, he produced a lot of standard wish-fulfillment military scenes, charges and flag-waving resistance, copied implicitly from old battle art. In the early, showily Napoleonic phase of the war, he seems to have spent time with the Zouave regiments of the Army of the Potomac, who wore red pantaloons, red fezzes, and blue collarless jackets. (Homer kept the fez, and wore it on occasion throughout his life. ) Adam Gopkin, The New Yorker, October 31, 2005

Diagnosing your own writing: 1. Do the first seven or eight words of every sentence constitute a relatively small set of related ideas? 2. Do those words name your most important characters? 3. Are the topics of those sentences the grammatical subjects? Is a sequence of identical topics in a passage monotonous?

Diagnosing your own writing: 1. Do the first seven or eight words of every sentence constitute a relatively small set of related ideas? 2. Do those words name your most important characters? 3. Are the topics of those sentences the grammatical subjects? Is a sequence of identical topics in a passage monotonous? Probably not for the reader (in many instances). For the sake of clarity, it is often better to err on the side of consistency, than variety.

Diagnosing your own writing: 1. Do the first seven or eight words of every sentence constitute a relatively small set of related ideas? 2. Do those words name your most important characters? 3. Are the topics of those sentences the grammatical subjects? Is a sequence of identical topics in a passage monotonous? Probably not for the reader (in many instances). For the sake of clarity, it is often better to err on the side of consistency, than variety. Some astonishing questions about the nature of the universe have been raised by scientists studying black holes in space. A black hole is created by the collapse of a dead star into a point perhaps no larger than a marble. So much matter compressed into so little volume changes the fabric of space around it in puzzling ways. The next sentence in the above passage could begin with a new but familiar term: Astronomers have recently reported, for example, that…

The STRESS position Readers want the Stress position (the last few words of a sentence or passage) to communicate: i. Long and complex phrases: Not this: A sociometric and actuarial analysis of Social Security revenues and disbursements for the last six decades to determine changes in projecting deficits is the subject of this study. This: In this study, we analyze Social Security’s revenues and disbursements for the last six decades, using sociometric and actuarial criteria to determine changes in projecting deficits. ii. New information, particularly unfamiliar technical terms: Not this: lympokine-activated killer (LAK) cells are lymphoid cells that can lyse fresh, noncultured, natural-killer-cell-resistant tumor cells but normal cells and are produced by incubating lymphocytes with the lympokine, interleukin-2. This: The incubation of peripheral-blood lymphocytes with a lympokine, interleukin 2, generates lymphoid cells that can lyse fresh, noncultured, natural-killer-cellresistant tumor cells but normal cells. We term these cells lympokine-activated killer (LAK) cells.

iii. Emphasis (the significant information in the sentence): Some ways to manage endings for emphasis: A. Trim the end. Some sociobiologists claim that our genes control our social behavior in the way we act in situations we are in every day.

iii. Emphasis (the significant information in the sentence): Some ways to manage endings for emphasis: A. Trim the end. Some sociobiologists claim that our genes control our social behavior in the way we act in situations we are in every day.

iii. Emphasis (the significant information in the sentence): Some ways to manage endings for emphasis: A. Trim the end. Some sociobiologists claim that our genes control our social behavior.

iii. Emphasis (the significant information in the sentence): Some ways to manage endings for emphasis: A. Trim the end. Some sociobiologists claim that our genes control our social behavior. B. Shift peripheral ideas to the left. The data offered to prove ESP are too weak for the most part.

iii. Emphasis (the significant information in the sentence): Some ways to manage endings for emphasis: A. Trim the end. Some sociobiologists claim that our genes control our social behavior. B. Shift peripheral ideas to the left. The data offered to prove ESP are too weak for the most part.

iii. Emphasis (the significant information in the sentence): Some ways to manage endings for emphasis: A. Trim the end. Some sociobiologists claim that our genes control our social behavior. B. Shift peripheral ideas to the left. The data offered to prove ESP are too weak for the most part. For the most part, the data offered to prove ESP are too weak.

iii. Emphasis (the significant information in the sentence): Some ways to manage endings for emphasis: A. Trim the end. Some sociobiologists claim that our genes control our social behavior. B. Shift peripheral ideas to the left. The data offered to prove ESP are too weak for the most part. For the most part, the data offered to prove ESP are too weak. Sentences are cohesive with one another when we see at the beginning of a second sentence information that appeared toward the end of the preceding sentence.

iii. Emphasis (the significant information in the sentence): Some ways to manage endings for emphasis: A. Trim the end. Some sociobiologists claim that our genes control our social behavior. B. Shift peripheral ideas to the left. The data offered to prove ESP are too weak for the most part. For the most part, the data offered to prove ESP are too weak. Sentences are cohesive with one another when we see at the beginning of a second sentence information that appeared toward the end of the preceding sentence. ÞPassages are coherent when we see that the topics of each sentence in the passage constitute a relatively small set of related ideas (i. e. , a small number of subjects and actions).

iii. Emphasis (the significant information in the sentence): Some ways to manage endings for emphasis: A. Trim the end. Some sociobiologists claim that our genes control our social behavior. B. Shift peripheral ideas to the left. The data offered to prove ESP are too weak for the most part. For the most part, the data offered to prove ESP are too weak. Sentences are cohesive with one another when we see at the beginning of a second sentence information that appeared toward the end of the preceding sentence. ÞPassages are coherent when we see that the topics of each sentence in the passage constitute a relatively small set of related ideas (i. e. , a small number of subjects and actions). From last weeks class… ÞReaders prefer that the main characters/topics (flesh and blood or abstract) are subjects and most of the verbs name the actions of the characters.

Creating Coherence • Can readers see the point of each section (paragraph)? -Highlight the sentence that states the point of each section. -Read those short opening segments as if they were a paragraph. -If they do not make sequential sense, revise them so that they do. • Can readers see how everything is relevant to a point? -Identify the relevance of each section or sentence to its point. -If you cannot identify the relevance of something, clarify or cut it. • Can readers see how subjects/topics in sentences in a section (paragraph) are a related string of familiar characters? -For each sentence in a section, underline its first several words. -If those words are not subject/topics making a set of related words that name your main characters, revise so they are. -Do the underlined words name concepts that readers would expect, given the topic or previous sentence? If not, revise.

5. Parallel Structure (http: //faculty. washington. edu/ezent/imsc. htm, Michael Alley & Robert A. Day) The parallel structure of a sentence refers to the extent to which different parts of the sentence match each other in form. In a series, all of the items should be alike, whether all nouns, all gerunds, all phrases or all clauses. If a series of verbs is used, they should all be in the same tense, voice and mood Examples: The process involves three steps: Cooling, chopping and pulverization. “Cooling” and “chopping” are gerunds, but “pulverization” is a nominalization. Change to: The process involves three steps: Cooling, chopping and pulverizing. In the last minute of the game, John intercepted the football, evaded the tacklers, and a touchdown was scored. The first two phrases in this sentence are in the active voice: "intercepted the football" and "evaded the tacklers. " However, the final phrase is in the passive voice: "and a touchdown was scored. ” Change to: In the last minute of the game, John intercepted the football, evaded the tacklers, and scored a touchdown. The new coach is a smart strategist, an effective manager, and works hard. "A smart strategist" and "an effective manager" are consistent with one another in form, but not consistent with "works hard. " Change to: The new coach is a smart strategist, an effective manager, and a hard worker.

6. Subject Verb agreement (http: //www. ucalgary. ca/Uof. C/eduweb/grammar/) General Rule: When the subject of the sentence is singular, the verb must be singular; when the subject of the sentence is plural, the verb must be plural. Ignore words, phrases or clauses between the subject and the verb. Examples: One man out of five uses an after shave.

6. Subject Verb agreement (http: //www. ucalgary. ca/Uof. C/eduweb/grammar/) General Rule: When the subject of the sentence is singular, the verb must be singular; when the subject of the sentence is plural, the verb must be plural. Ignore words, phrases or clauses between the subject and the verb. Examples: One man out of five uses an after shave. A collective noun may be either SINGULAR or PLURAL depending on whether you mean the individuals or the group: The group is united on the subject of abortion. The group, all ten of them, have different opinions. Little Women is a novel of great sentimentality. When the conjunction "and" joins two or more subjects (whether singular or plural) the verb must be PLURAL: The boy and his sister go to the same school. If "either/or" or "neither/nor" joins two subjects, the verb agrees in number with the nearer SUBJECT: Neither my mother nor her friends attend the class. Either oranges or a lemon is used in that recipe.

The indefinite pronouns another, each, either, none and neither as well as those ending in -one, -body, -thing are always singular and take a singular verb: Each of my friends feels sorry for my plight. None of us knows the answer to the question. The definite pronouns all, any, most, more, and some take a singular verb if they refer to a singular portion of a whole or a plural verb if they refer to more than one: Some of the cake remains on the plate for you. Some of my schoolmates like to dance all night.

7. Pronoun ambiguity (Michael Alley) Examples: Because the receiver presented the radiometer with a high-flux environment, it was mounted in a silver-plated stainless steel container. What is mounted in the container: the receiver? the radiometer? the high-flux environment? There are no peaks in the olefinic region. Therefore, no significant concentration of olefinic hydrocarbons exist in fresh oil. This places an upper limit on the concentration of olefins, no more than 0. 01 percent… What does “This” refer to: the noun at the end of the preceding sentence (fresh oil)? the subject of the preceding sentence (no significant concentration of olefinic hydrocarbons)? the first sentence in this passage (…no peaks in the olefinic region)? “This” was actually intended to refer to the lack of peaks in the olefinic region. Change to: The chromatogram has no peaks in the olefinic region. Therefore, no significant concentration of olefinic hydrocarbons exist in fresh oil. This chromatogram finding places an upper limit on the concentration of olefins, no more than 0. 01 percent…

PRELIMINARY STUDIES The purpose of the Preliminary Studies section is to describe (your) prior work that is relevant to the proposed project. This section of the proposal needs to establish the following matters: 1. That you are fully competent in all of the procedures proposed (obviously, this is not a concern for a graduate student oral exam proposal, as a major point of the research plan is to expose the student to novel training opportunities). 2. To establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the proposed studies are logical and feasible. Technical/Editorial Considerations: -Create subsections to address specific experimental goals. -Figures and tables should be as uncomplicated as possible, and placed as close as possible to where they are referenced in the text. -Figures and tables MUST be legible. -Design each figure and table to convey a single point. -Place methodology in the figure/table legends, NOT in the text. This is one of the lengthiest sections of the proposal, and often this section makes or breaks a proposal.