The Science Of Scientific Writing Set C Coherence &Cohesion Coherence I Exercise 1 Coherence II Exercise 2 Cohesion Exercise 3 Final Page.
OVERVIEW: The way to well-written science
PART I: Paragraphs and Sentences
SET A: Paragraphs: The Maps Behind Them
SET B: Paragraphs: Using Maps to Meet Readers' Expectations
SET C: Paragraph Coherence and Cohesion
SET D: Sentences
SET E: Scientific Sections (including Methods)
SET F: Scientific Sections: The Discussion
SET G : Scientific Sections: The Introduction
SET H : The Paper as a Whole
Global Coherence I: a strong sense of purpose
The most important criterion that will result in a paragraph being deemed as coherent is how successfully the paragraph convinces the reader that the author had a clear purpose when writing it. In terms of how we have discussed paragraphs in scientific papers previously, it is therefore critical that the reader is not confused as to whether the author is primarily:
- Describing
- Reporting
- Arguing
- Explaining
As mentioned previously, while a paragraph need not be entirely "unimodal", but when the reader is confused as to what is its main mode, then the paragraph will feel more or less incoherent. There are many mistakes that can lead to uncertainty over the paragraph's main discourse mode, and some of these will now be discussed with reference to the explanatory paragraph below:
The platypus was first reported outside of Australia in 1798. Preserved specimens were sent back to England where they caused much scientific excitement. The platypus had a bill like a duck, and laid eggs, but instead of having feathers, it had fur. The platypus is now considered a mammal, even though it lays eggs. Typically one to three soft leathery eggs are laid in a deep burrow. The platypus has fur which, when examined in detail, is structurally similar to that of non-egg-laying mammals. These features of the hair were most fully described by the famous biologist Leon Augustus Hausman. Hausman died in 1966. His scholarly expertise on the topic of mammalian hair often brought him into the public arena, and once he was even called on to provide expert opinion on a sacred "Yeti" scalp kept in a Himalayan monastery. Hausman showed that the hair scales of the shaft of the platypus exhibit the typical mammalian shift in shape between the base and the tip. The platypus also produces a milky secretion that is used to suckle the newborns. The milk is produced not from teats but from pores in the ventral abdominal skin. The milk has a much higher concentration of iron than that of the eutherian mammals. Hair and suckling of the young are features now universally acknowledged as definitive characteristics of the class Mammalia. The long and often controversial involvement of so many scientists in the documentation of platypus biology indicates the value of a socio-historical study of the engagement of the scientific community with this animal.
Major Mistake 1: A weak landmark (or pointer) sentence
A clear frame-of-reference sentence early in the paragraph is fundamental to its sense of coherence. The landmark sentence in the paragraph above is meant to be sentence four ("The platypus is now considered a mammal, even though it lays eggs.") but its effectiveness is low if we compare the paragraph's current opening with the revised version below:
The platypus was first reported outside of Australia in 1798 when specimens sent back to England caused scientists to puzzle over the animal's combination of mammalian and avian-reptilian features. Today, despite truly sharing some features with the birds and reptiles, several other characteristics have resulted in the platypus being grouped with the mammals. Firstly, it has fur which, when examined in detail, is structurally similar to that of non-egg-laying mammals
What is it in this version that makes sentence two now stand out as a well-defined landmark sentence?
* Most simply, the landmark sentence now appears earlier, and in particular it does not arrive later than sentence three, as in the original. In the revised version, some of the content of the original first three sentences has been eliminated, and the rest has been compacted into a single sentence.
* The sentence immediately after the landmark sentence ("Firstly, it has fur...") now has exactly the type of relationship one would expect in an explanation, whereas in the original the following sentence provides descriptive elaboration about platypus eggs. Readers do not know in advance what a paragraph's purpose will be, and the landmark (or pointer) sentence alone is rarely sufficient to tell them: the best clue is given by when the juxtaposition of the landmark and post-landmark sentences is uniquely appropriate to the particular core mode of discourse.
* In the revised version, there is a consistency of terminology and ideas in the introductory, landmark and post-landmark sentences, with the result that the uncertainty - "mammalian" or "avian-reptilian" is reinforced as the central issue of the paragraph. This does not occur in the original. If a paragraph is landmark-final (i.e. it has both pointer and landmark sentences) it is very important to use similar terminology in both, otherwise the reader may not realise, for example, that the landmark sentence is answering a question posed by the pointer.
Major Mistake 2: Too much non-core material
The main discourse mode is explanatory ("Why is the platypus considered a mammal?) but in the original there so many descriptive sentences (shown in bold below) that the reader may lose sight as as to what is being argued. If we were to map this paragraph in Rationale using our conventional method, it would be littered with yellow notes! To convince yourself that the sentences in bold are non-core, just read the non-bolded sentences and you will see they make more sense than the paragraph as a whole.
The platypus was first reported outside of Australia in 1798. Preserved specimens were sent back to England where they caused much scientific excitement. The platypus had a bill like a duck, and laid eggs, but instead of having feathers, it had fur. The platypus is now considered a mammal, even though it lays eggs. Typically one to three soft leathery eggs are laid in a deep burrow. The platypus has fur which, when examined in detail, is structurally similar to that of non-egg-laying mammals. These features of the hair were most fully described by the famous biologist Leon Augustus Hausman. Hausman died in 1966. His scholarly expertise on the topic of mammalian hair often brought him into the public arena, and once he was even called on to provide expert opinion on a sacred "Yeti" scalp kept in a Himalayan monastery. Hausman showed that the hair scales of the shaft of the platypus exhibit the typical mammalian shift in shape between the base and the tip. The platypus also produces a milky secretion that is used to suckle the newborns. The milk is produced not from teats but from pores in the ventral abdominal skin. The milk has a much higher concentration of iron than that of the eutherian mammals. Hair and suckling of the young are features now universally acknowledged as definitive characteristics of the class Mammalia. The long and often controversial involvement of so many scientists in the documentation of platypus biology indicates the value of a socio-historical study of the engagement of the scientific community with this animal.
What is particularly bad is that at two points the author shifts into non-core mode for two and three consecutive sentences. If non-core conent is to be included, try to keep the interruption down to a single sentence at a time, either by elimination or compaction, as shown in the fully revised version below:
The platypus was first reported outside of Australia in 1798 when specimens sent back to England caused scientists to puzzle over the animal's combination of mammalian and avo-reptilian features. Today, despite truly sharing some features with the birds and reptiles, several other characteristics have resulted in the platypus being grouped with the mammals. Firstly, it has fur which, when examined in detail, is structurally similar to that of non-egg-laying mammals. These features of the hair were most fully described by Leon Hausman (died 1966), the pre-eminent mammalian hair expert of the twentieth century. Hausman showed that the hair scales of the shaft of the platypus exhibit the typical mammalian shift in shape between the base and the tip. Secondly, the platypus also suckles its newborns by secreting (from pores on its ventral abdominal skin) an iron-rich milk. The engagement of scientists with the platypus has been a long one and is deserving of a study in itself, but today, they all concur that the presence of hair and suckling of the young are sufficient to definitively place this animal in class Mammalia.
Major Mistake 3: Ending the paragraph with non-core content
The final sentence of a paragraph is one of the two locations where a landmark sentence can appear. Therefore be very careful what information you put there, because reades will be ready to give it high priority.
The final sentence of the original version
The long and often controversial involvement of so many scientists in the documentation of Platypus biology indicates the value of a socio-historical study of the engagement of the scientific community with this animal.
woud cause many readers to interpret this as the take home message of the paragraph and thus its landmark sentence. If we imagine the author meant this more as just an interesting side-comment, then the revised version makes misinterpretation less likely, and helps to place the emphasis back on platypus classification:
The engagement of scientists with the platypus has been a long one and is deserving of a study in itself, but today, they all concur that the presence of hair and suckling of the young are sufficient to definitively place this animal in class Mammalia.
since, as we will see later, when readers are interpreting a sentence they give higher importance to the information located at the sentence's end.
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