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English 1101 |
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Mapping Patterns of Coherence in Your Writing
Lab 7
As we have discussed in the HyperTextBook, all writers make choices of language (vocabulary and syntax) that mark their particular styles. Among the most telling marks are those made by the choices we make in patterns of coherence. The exercise below is designed to help you investigate your patterns of coherence in your writing.
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- Choose a couple of paragraphs — paragraphs of good size (5 or more sentences) in one of your old documents. (You will need to toggle to the program manager to open your word processor and an old document, as we learned to do in Lab 1.)
- Copy & paste the paragraphs you chose into this lab (Highlight the paragraphs in your word processor and choose Edit | Copy on the menu bar. Then toggle to the text box in this lab, and choose Edit | Paste to insert the paragraph you copied from the original.)
- To study paragraph unity, place an asterisk (*) before the paragraph's topic sentence. Then check that each and every remaining sentence does support just that one generalization.
- To study sentence coherence, place an asterisk (*) before the coherence devices that already exist between one sentence and the next. Label the link inside of square brackets [ ].
- Add more coherent links as necessary, highlighting those too as you add them.
For Example
This paragraph comes from the opening of
Stanislaw Lem's Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
The original
My mark-up of coherence devices I couldn't seem to find the right room — none of them had the number designated on my pass. First, I wound up at the Department of Verification, then the Department of Misinformation, then some clerk from the Pressure Section advised me to try level eight, but on level eight they ignored me, and later I got stuck in a crowd of military personnel — the corridors rang with their vigorous marching back and forth, the slamming of doors, the clicking of heels, and over that martial noise, I could hear the distant music of bells, the tinkling of metals. Now and then janitors would go by with steaming percolators, now and then I would stumble into rest rooms where secretaries hastily renewed their make-up, now and then agents disguised as elevator men would strike up conversations — one of them had an artificial leg and he took me from floor to floor so many times that after a while he began waving to me from a distance and even stopped photographing me with the camera-carnation in his lapel. By noon we were buddies, and he showed me his pride and joy, a tape recorder under the elevator floor. But I was getting more and more depressed and couldn't share his enthusiasm.
*I couldn't seem to find the right room [the topic sentence: all other sentences in this paragraph support this idea of confusion and disorientation] — none of *them [pronoun referring to "room"] had the number designated on my pass. *First [enumeration], *I [pronoun] wound up at the Department of Verification, *then [enumeration & transition of addition] the Department of Misinformation, *then [enumeration & transition of addition] some clerk from the Pressure Section advised me to try level eight, *but [transition of contrast] on level eight they ignored me, *and [transition of addition] later *I [pronoun] got stuck in a crowd of military personnel — the corridors rang with *their [pronoun referring back to *military] vigorous *marching back and forth, the *slamming of doors, the *clicking of heels [parallelism], *and [transition of addition] over that martial noise, *I [pronoun] could hear the distant music of bells, the tinkling of metals. Now and then janitors *would go [setting up parallelism in the verb phrases] by with steaming percolators, *now and then [repetition] *I [pronoun] *would stumble [parallelism] into rest rooms where secretaries hastily renewed their make-up, *now and then [repetition] agents disguised as elevator men *would strike up [end of the parallelism in the verb phrases] conversations — *one of them [pronouns referring to "agents"] had an artificial leg *and [transition of addition] *he took *me [pronouns] from floor to floor so many times that after a while *he [pronoun] began waving to me from a distance and even stopped photographing me with the camera-carnation in his lapel. By noon *we were buddies, *and [transition of addition] *he [pronoun] showed *me his [pronouns] pride and joy, a tape recorder under the *elevator [repetition] floor. *But [transition of contrast] *I [pronoun] was getting more and more depressed and couldn't share *his [pronoun] enthusiasm.
Now paste your text below and use the directions above to mark it for coherence devices. Refer to the page on Coherence in Writing if you need to review.
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