Presents writing as a form of dialog and the paragraph as a unit of implied dialog. (MM)

Describes the results of an analysis of 87 non-formulaic abstracts for structures of semantic dependency between sentences. An automatic structural simplification is presented which is based on an assumption about the use of the dependency structure, and the results of an evaluation of the method are discussed. (25 references) (CLB)

Examines prevailing definitions of coherence in text. Cites writing samples from the National Assessment of Educational Progress to illustrate how coherence at the paragraph level must supersede coherence between sentences. (HTH)

Suggests that teaching students to achieve coherence involves teaching them what it means to plan and to move up and down a hierarchy of abstraction as well as teaching them to build cohesive links into their writing. Describes a program for teaching coherence. (RL)

Analysis of the role of paraphrase in the cohesion of everyday oral discourse suggests that combining two methodological approaches to discourse analysis, using distribution of specific discourse elements and sequential relationships within discourse, creates a more empirical foundation for analysis, leading to a more accurate formulation of the…

Examines coherence between sentences in a paragraph, arguing that readers require coherence at this level as well as between paragraphs. Discusses continuative and discontinuative relationships between sentences, including (1) sequence, (2) exemplification, (3) addition, (4) replacement, (5) contrast, and (6) alternation. (HTH)

Describes a method for helping students see the importance of a topic sentence to achieve unity in written paragraphs. Students note all red items in the classroom. Parallels are then drawn between the way concentrating on red limits notice of other details and the way topic sentences limit and focus the details in a paragraph. (HTH)

Offers rules and comments for using discourse analysis to teach student writers how to convert incoherent compositions into coherent, cohesive prose. (RL)

Helping students understand coherence in terms of the lexical ties and semantic relations possible between clauses and sentences formalizes an area of writing instruction that has been somewhat vague before and makes the process of creating a coherent paragraph less mysterious. Many students do not have the intuitive knowledge base for absorbing…

Warns against the overuse of cohesive conjunctions in writing and recommends that teachers instruct students on contextual use of conjunctions rather than on their random use. (CRH)

Explores findings from research on the psychology of reading that may confirm and enlarge upon both the importance of planning and the perceptions of plans in writing and reading. (RL)

Excerpts from articles in the "British Medical Journal" and "The American Journal of Medicine" were compared to determine which journal was easier to read and what stylistic traits might account for such ease. Nine paragraphs from the discussion sections of articles on hypertension were taken from each of the journals. When…

Superordinates in Halliday and Hasan's analysis of cohesion are lexical items which refer to preceding terms, ideas, or actions, or to whole stretches of discourse, by naming a more inclusive category or class within which the antecedent is included. In written texts the interrelationships between superordinates and more specific terms, or…

Three experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that a paragraph composed of sentences with identical or closely related topics would be easier to read than one whose sentence topics were only remotely related. The first experiment involved subjective judgments by 131 high school students on the readability of two paragraphs identical in…

Examines teacher response to learner errors in composition, and proposes rules for coherent writing. (AM)