Getting the Hang of Writing - Cohesion

Writing that 'hangs' together effectively uses cohesion. There are two kinds of cohesion - grammatical and logical. Today's post is focused upon the world of grammatical cohesion.

Grammatical cohesion refers to all of the parts of the sentence being in agreement. This includes noun-pronoun agreement and noun-verb agreement, as well as other 'ties'.

RULES - Noun-verb agreement:

• If the noun is singular, the verb is plural (present tense verb).
• If the noun is plural, the verb is singular (present tense verb).
• Verb does not change from singular to plural (past/future tense verb).

Examples:

My mother like to receive a bunch of flowers for her birthday. WRONG

My mother likes to receive a bunch of flowers for her birthday. RIGHT

The boys like to kick the football. RIGHT

The boys likes to kick the football. WRONG

My mother walked down the street. RIGHT

The boys walked down the street. RIGHT

RULES - Noun-pronoun Agreement

• A singular noun must be combined with a singular pronoun
• A plural noun must be combined with a plural pronoun
• A pronoun must agree with the gender of the noun it replaces

Examples:

Mrs Brewster took her coat off as soon as she walked into her home. RIGHT

Mrs Brewster took his coat off as soon as he walked into his home. WRONG

The girls opened their presents after the speeches. RIGHT

The girls opened her presents after the speeches. WRONG

We'll talk about logical cohesion some other time.

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