| Unity, Support and Coherence |
The three concepts of unity, support and coherence serve as a quick means of analyzing the overall form (rather than just content) of an argument. An author who can control these three elements should communicate their points clearly and effectively. See the list of questions at the very bottom of the page to help in applying these concepts to your analysis, and use the after-the-fact outline with every paper.
Unity in writing means that all material is clearly relevant to an essay's main point (thesis). Any paragraphs that are off-topic or that lead you, the writer, away from your thesis will lead your audience away from your point as well. Consequently, such material must be revised or deleted.
Just as all paragraphs within an essay must directly support the thesis, all material within each paragraph must support the one main idea of that paragraph. This single main idea is most often stated in the topic sentence that opens the paragraph. When all material within the paragraph directly supports the topic sentence (which in turn supports your essay's thesis), the paragraph is unified.
If, however, you find you have more than one main idea within a paragraph, your paragraph lacks unity and will be confusing. The following is an example of a paragraph that lacks unity:
Philip Randolph, the great African-American champion of labor and civil rights, led confrontations with three very popular presidents. Mr. Randolph called for a march on Washington by thousands of African-Americans on July 1, 1941, if President Roosevelt would not take action to end discrimination in defense industries during World War II. Mr. Randolph was born in Florida. After much delay, the president met with Randolph and one week later, opened many defense jobs to black workers. A few years later, in 1948, Mr. Randolph threatened mass civil disobedience if President Truman did not end segregation against African-Americans in the military. On July 25, Truman approved the order that integrated the armed services. The last confrontation was with John F. Kennedy, who sought to stop the 1963 civil rights March on Washington. The march featured the Reverend Martin Luther King's unforgettable "I Have a Dream" speech.
At least two of the sentences in the quote above do not directly support the topic sentence and, therefore, should be deleted.
The substance of any essay consists of its support--the specific statements that clarify and back up the thesis statement of the paper. Support is not general; it is specific. It can come from many sources: statistics, facts, quotations, names, dates and examples.
While general statements are not hard to write, it is often difficult for writers to move from the general to the specific and thereby provide solid support for their thesis statements and topic sentences. As a result, such essays are weak and have little to offer their audience. Below are two sample paragraphs. Which one is replete with generalities and which uses specifics?:
Our run-down city block was made special by a lot called The Community Garden. The lot was planted with all sorts of plants, vegetables, and flowers. There was a path curving through it. We went there to think. The Community Garden made our block special. Though our neighborhood was known as "tough," no one ever vandalized the garden.
Our run-down city block was made special by a once-vacant lot called The Community Garden. I'm not sure who first had the idea, but the thin soil had been fertilized, raked, and planted with a surprising assortment of vegetables and flowers. Anyone interested in gardening could tend green pepper plants, string beans, fresh herbs, even corn. Others planted flowers, which changed with the seasons--tall red dahlias, white and purple iris, and taxi-yellow marigolds to discourage the insects. A narrow path curved gracefully among the plants, paved with bricks no doubt left over from the building that once stood here. The Community Garden was our pride, the place we went to think and to be still. Though our neighborhood was known as "tough," no one ever vandalized the garden.
All academic writing requires support at both the essay level and at the paragraph level. The details of each paragraph must adequately support your main point. For this to happen, you should not begin writing without a fairly focused thesis statement. With your thesis in mind, you develop your ideas for support in the prewriting stage and flesh out these ideas as you write.
Support and Prewriting: Before you write use as many prewriting techniques as you can in order to discover the ideas that will form the basis of your support. Use brainstorming, freewriting, clustering, or listmaking, for example. Be free with your ideas--do not critique or limit yourself in the prewriting stage. Once you've exhausted your prewriting, review the ideas you have generated. This is the time to be critical. Remember your audience. What details does it need to know? Focus on the good ideas and points of clear support; eliminate or modify the rest.
Next, does review of your prewriting suggest that you have sufficient points of support to sustain your argument? To determine this, ask who, what, where, when, why, and how questions about your thesis. The answers to these questions will help you determine which other points of support you may need to include. For example, you could not effectively write about non-violence in the Civil Rights Movement while neglecting the influence of Martin Luther King.
Sometimes, after prewriting and developing appropriate points of support, you will discover that your original thesis statement does not clearly reflect the support you are considering. If this happens, simply revise your thesis before continuing.
Support and the Writing Process: Once you have brainstormed for ideas, selected the best support for your particular audience and argument, and organized that support (see Coherence below), you may begin writing your first draft. As you write, think of what evidence best serves a given topic sentence's paragraph. While paragraphs begin with a general, umbrella-type topic sentence, they must be backed up with specific support. Remember that some points of support may need to be broken down into separate, distinct examples for different body paragraphs. Make sure that each of your points has adequate support.
For a more detailed discussion on the practicalities of using support (how to use and cite quotations), see the MLA Citation and Plagiarism handout in the writing section of the class website.
Once you are satisfied with the overall order of your paragraphs, you can strengthen the essay's coherence by making certain that appropriate transitions occur between paragraphs as well as within paragraphs and sentences. The opening sentence of this paragraph is a good example of a coherent topic sentence that ties two paragraphs together logically: the first part looks directly back at the preceding section, while the second looks ahead to this one. Such transitions can go at the end of paragraphs or at the beginning. Additionally, examples of transition words and phrases appear in bold throughout this paragraph. Yet, you need not worry if you miss including them in your first draft; they are easy to add in revision. These transitions may indicate time, space, order, opposition and number, but should not detract from the overall message. Also remember that the ultimate goal of these connections is to assist the reader's journey through each paragraph.
Questions for Applying Unity, Support and Coherence or what I learned from reading this handout.
Unity (think of unity as the overall skeletal structure of your essay):
- Is there a clear thesis statement that gives the topic of my paper and my idea about that topic?
- Is all the material in the paper relevant to my thesis?
- Is all the material in each paragraph relevant to the topic sentence of the paragraph?
Support (think of support as the "meat" of your essay):
- Is there specific evidence that supports my main point?
- Is there enough specific evidence for each point?
Coherence (think of coherence as what connects the meat of your essay to its skeleton......ick):
- Does my essay have a clear method of organization?
- Do I use transitions and other connecting words or phrases to move smoothly from one paragraph to the next?
- Do I use transitions and other connecting words or phrases to tie sentences and key ideas together within the paragraphs?
The quickest way to apply the concepts of unity, support and coherence to any essay is to perform an after-the-fact outline. After reading the essay, go back through it, writing in the margin beside each paragraph or on a separate piece of paper a phrase (or perhaps just a word) that summarizes every paragraph's main point. If you run into difficulties finding that word or phrase it may be because the paragraph has extraneous information that is not necessary to the entire argument (unity), or because the paragraph contains information that does not belong with that particular point and should be developed in or moved to a different paragraph (support), or because the information within the pargraph is simply poorly connected (coherence). The after-the-fact outline provides a quick thumbnail of the entire argument and can be helpful either when writing your own essay (showing you which paragraphs do and do not need work) or analyzing another author's argument (showing you the strong or weak moments of their structure).