Coherence : The Underlying Message

organizing the body of the speech; more specifically, the use of main points, supporting points,

In this chapter, Lunsford details the planning and drafting process for a writer to organize their ideas with either a formal outline or a rough plan. Lunsford reminds writers to be flexible during the drafting process and not to think twice about changing elements of the essay at this point in the process. Lunsford goes on to explain the qualities academic paragraphs must have these include unity, development and coherence. To obtain unity within a paragraph all sentences should relate to the topic sentence of the paragraph. When developing a paragraph it is important to switch between general and specific ideas in the paragraph, while supporting those ideas with details, evidence and examples as required. Ensuring a paragraph is coherent is crucial when developing an academic paragraph. Because readers need to be able to follow a writers ideas easily, Lunsford gives her readers a method to follow to achieve this goal. This method includes using the general to specific ideas, repetition, parallel structures, and using transition words. The author notes that this method should also be used to link paragraphs

Writing varies from a text message to a novel. Writers often have a difficult task in creating a piece of work that truly identifies the meaning of good writing. Every good writer usually starts with the basics such as genre, audience, rhetorical situation, and reflection of the piece. Throughout this semester, we have gone through all of these key terms in great detail with each new assignment that has come our way. In doing this, not only as students but also as writers, we have come to create our own theory of writing. Every writer has a different theory of writing though most are very similar. Now, at this point in the semester after doing countless journals, in-class exercises, and final assignments, I think I have figured out my own

In paragraphs one and two, the author introduces herself and gives her explanation and reasoning for wanting a wife. Brady demonstrates her credibility in these paragraphs. “I belong to that classification of people known as wives. I am A Wife. And, not altogether incidentally, I am a mother.” Brady introduces herself as A Wife and a mother, showing her empirical knowledge. The author then capitalizes “A Wife” because she wants to emphasize and argue that she is a wife, not a servant or any other job description. By capitalizing these words she is showing that wives are no longer looked at as people, but as objects or as a type of job. She then begins to explain how she came about wanting a wife. “Not too long ago a male friend of mine appeared on the scene fresh from a recent divorce...He is looking for another wife. As I thought about him while I was ironing one evening, it suddenly occurred to me that I, too, would like to have a wife.” She employs irony thourgh this statement. Of course, she was ironing or doing chores because she is A Wife, that is what they are supposed to do. She shows a short glimpse at her job title and her job description.

The most convincing ideas in the world, conceived and expressed in the most arresting sentences will have no effect if not connected properly to one another. Unless the reader can easily understand and move from one thought to the next, they will have limits to understanding anything they are reading. Providing techniques such as pronoun reference, transitions and parallel structure help Vincenzo Ravina, the author of the article The Teenage Brain achieve coherence. Coherence is obtained when ideas and sentences flow together smoothly and consistently.

Rosenblatt, Louise M. Writing and Reading: The Transactional Theory. Champaign: University of Illionois at Urbana-Champaign (1988)

In the short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver the unnamed narrator and his wife are constantly arguing. Cathedral takes place in New York at the narrator’s and his wife’s home during the early 1980’s. The narrator is not a good husband, drinks a lot, and smokes marijuana. The narrator is jealous of Robert because he can connect better with the narrator’s wife. He is not a good husband and is judgemental. The wife is lonely and wants to be understood by her husband. She writes poems to Robert because her husband does not appreciate her art like he does. Robert is the narrator’s wife’s friend who comes to visit, he is blind but can see the world through his heart. The narrator’s wife used to work for Robert. They were both really close and

This seems to unsettle the husband, as he notices that his wife has a stronger connection with Robert than they have in their marriage. The husband is blind to his wife’s feelings and needs in their relationship, and this lack of communication between them has affected their marriage. His wife wrote a poem about her experience with the blind man touching her face, and he brushed it off by stating that, “[He] can remember not thinking much about the poem” (33). The blind man however acts as an outlet for the wife to vent about her feelings which forms a close bond between the two. Robert can understand the speaker’s wife in a way that the speaker clearly is not able to. The narrator mentions that he believes Robert’s wife, Beluah, must have led a miserable life because she, “could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loves one. A woman who could never go on day after day and never receive the smallest compliment from her beloved” (34). He believes that the blind man’s wife must have suffered due to his inability to see her, yet the narrator has never even truly seen his own wife. Robert’s friendship with the speaker’s wife is what his own marriage is lacking due to not being able to recognize that his wife needs an emotional connection with him.

divorced male friend, who is looking for a new wife. The narrator gives a list of duties and

Throughout literature, deep relationships can often be discovered between a story and the author who writes it. Relationships can also be found in stories about a husband and wife. In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales many of the characters make this idea apparent with the stories they tell. In “The Pardoner’s Tale”, a distinct relationship can be made between the character of the Pardoner and his tale of three friends. Also, the Wife in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” boldly declares her relationship towards her husband.

Modern literature is known for questioning society and its various conventions. One question that these works often ask is, “What is real?” Some modern authors explore this question by placing their characters within self-constructed illusions that are later shattered by the introduction of reality. Marriages are frequently at the center of this theme, with one spouse crafting an illusory impression of the other. Modern literature demonstrates that a marriage built upon illusion will falter when exposed to reality.

consistences was when Dr Jim Pham remarked to Dr Dean and Nurse Janet during their

In the very first line of the Novel it reads “When I think of my wife, I always think of her head” Flynn page 2. Automatically I notice that Nick is telling the story due to the fact that he used “I”. As Nick tells his story he shows the theme of marriage is present. “The question I’ve asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not the person who could answer.” Flynn Page 2.

This ideal men 's personality profoundly influenced many women at the time. In 1940, there was a woman 's marriage notice of her self-description written as "female, 26, unmarried, slim and beautiful, warm and solemn, normal school graduation, interested in art and needlework with old morals and new ideas."(Yu Hualin). In general, marriage notice is the description of one’s personal conditions, which always describes the best of their own advantages or the attractions to impress the opposite sex. This woman’s description of her normal school graduation and interests of literature and art openly advertised her ability to have an independent livelihood, and the description of her temperament and interests of needlework highlighted her ability to regulate a family. This line of words and deeds is an ideal example of male 's ideal personality projected on women.

The fact that “Marriage-hearse” is in a neat rhyming structure makes the words drum into the readers head more making it easier to remember and to paint a mental picture in the readers mind.