Review of Unity, Support, Coherence

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UNITY IN WRITING
= all sentences are clearly relevant to a paragraphs main point (topic sentence). Sentences that are off-topic or that lead away from the topic sentence must be revised or deleted. A paragraph that has more than one main idea is confusing and lacking unity.

Philip Randolph, the great African-American champion of labor and civil rights, led confrontations with three popular presidents. Mr. Randolph called for a march on Washington by thousands of African-American 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 Randolph and a week later, he 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-American 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 Kings unforgettable I Have a Dream speech.

SUPPORT
= the specific statements that clarify and back up the topic sentence of the paragraph. It can come from many sources: Statistics Facts Quotations names Dates Examples.

BAD SUPPORT: TOO GENERAL

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.

SPECIFIC SUPPORTS
Our run-down city block was made special by a oncevacant lot called The Community Garden. Im 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 seasontall 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 there. 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.

SUPPORT & PREWRITING

Use many prewriting techniques to discover the ideas that will form the basis of the support, use brainstorming, freewriting, clustering, or listmaking.

1. IDEA
Be free with ideas, do not limit in the prewriting stage. Review the ideas that have been generated. Be critical. Remember the audience and the details it needs to know. Focus on the good ideas and points of clear support; eliminate or modify the rest.

2. REVIEW FOR POINTS OF SUPPORT

ASK: who, what, where, when, why, and how questions about the topic sentence. Sometimes, it is found that after prewriting the original topic sentence is not clearly reflected. Revise the topic sentence before continuing.

SUPPORT & the WRITING PROCESS

After brainstorming for ideas, selecting the best support, and organizing the support; start writing the first draft. While writing, think about the best evidence for the topic sentence's paragraph. A general, umbrella-type topic sentence must be backed up with specific support. Some points of support may need to be broken down into separate, distinct examples for different body paragraphs. Make sure that each point has adequate support.

COHERENCE
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

Unity: 1. Is there a clear topic sentence? 2. Is the material in the paper relevant to the topic sentence? Support: 1. Is there specific evidence that supports the main point? 2. Is there enough specific evidence for each point? Coherence: 1. Does the paragraph have a clear method of organization? 2. Do transitions and connections tie sentences and key ideas together within the paragraphs?

After-the-fact Outline
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 paragraph is simply poorly connected (coherence).