Imagine watching a movie where each scene is shot beautifully, the actors deliver their lines flawlessly, and the camera work is smooth—but you have absolutely no idea what the plot is.
Everything technically works, yet something essential is missing.
It’s like being shown stunning puzzle pieces but never getting a glimpse of the final picture on the box.
That uneasy feeling?
It’s the same with what readers experience when writing has cohesion, but lacks coherence.
In their influential book, “Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace,” authors Joseph Bizup and Joseph M. Williams pull back the curtain on what really makes writing not just technically sound, but also truly understandable.
They teach us that while cohesion—the smooth, sentence-to-sentence flow—is vital, it’s not enough.
After all, readers crave a sense of the whole. They need to feel like the writing is building towards something meaningful, not just gliding from one sentence to the next.
That’s where coherence comes in…
Cohesion vs. Coherence: The Secret Behind Writing That “Clicks”
Bizup and Williams cleverly distinguish between cohesion and coherence using a jigsaw puzzle metaphor.
Cohesion, they explain, is how well sentences fit together on a micro level, like puzzle pieces linking edge-to-edge.
Meanwhile, coherence is the big picture. It’s the image that all those connected pieces create together.
A paragraph might be cohesive, flowing sentence to sentence with seemingly natural ease… but if those sentences don’t align around a central theme or topic, readers are left confused, nodding at each sentence individually, yet unsure of what the entire passage is supposed to convey.
Take, for instance, a humorous yet baffling passage where six writers each added one sentence to a paragraph, only knowing the sentence that came right before theirs.
The result?
A perfectly cohesive but completely incoherent mess!
Imagine snowmobiles in Wisconsin devolving into mashed potatoes and childhood therapy.
Huh???
Clearly, there’s flow in such a sentence or paragraph, but no focus!
So, as a writer, how do you move from a jumbled collection of sentences to a unified, meaningful paragraph?
Bizup and Williams point to three core issues that sabotage coherence:
- Unrelated sentence subjects
- A lack of shared ideas or themes
- No single sentence that articulates what the whole passage is about
Among these, the first—consistency in subjects—is critical.
Think about this: When the subjects of your sentences jump from one thing to another without a clear thread, readers lose their place in your narrative. The writing feels scattered.
However, when subjects are related—better yet, when they revolve around familiar “characters” or concepts—the writing feels centered, even if the ideas themselves are complex.
Here’s the thing: Some English teachers have long taught that the subject of a sentence is either the “doer” of the action or what the sentence is “about.”
However, Bizup and Williams challenge this, urging writers like you to go deeper.
A subject might be grammatically correct, yet still fail to highlight what the sentence is really about—its topic.
Sometimes, the topic is tucked away in a prepositional phrase, or emphasized out of typical order.
For example:
It is impossible for your claim to be proved. (Topic: your claim)
Such results no one could have predicted. (Topic: such results)
In each of these, the grammatical subject doesn’t quite name the core idea… and when writers do this over and over, their readers struggle to follow the thread.
That’s why Bizup and Williams urge you to make the subjects of your sentences do double duty—not just as grammatical necessities, but also as carriers of your core ideas.
According to them, when you align your sentence subjects with your central topics, your writing becomes grounded. It gives readers familiar landmarks to follow, even in challenging terrain.
You Can’t Trust Your Own Eyes or Ears
Here’s the catch: When you’re the one who wrote a sentence or paragraph, your brain fills in the gaps. You know what you meant.
The thing is, your readers don’t have access to your internal roadmap.
That’s why Bizup and Williams offer a simple but powerful diagnostic tool:
- Underline the first seven or eight words of each sentence (up to the verb).
- Analyze : Are these underlined subjects part of a consistent set of related ideas? Do they reflect your key characters or concepts?
- Revise : Make sure your sentence subjects align with the real topics you want readers to focus on. Then, keep them consistent across the paragraph.
For example, consider this choppy passage:
“Consistent ideas toward the beginnings of sentences help readers understand what a passage is generally about. A sense of coherence arises when a sequence of topics comprises a narrow set of related ideas. But the context of each sentence is lost by seemingly random shifts of topics. Unfocused paragraphs result when that happens.”
Even though the writing isn’t grammatically wrong, the sentence subjects shift unpredictably—from “consistent ideas” to “a sense of coherence” to “the context of each sentence”—making it hard to latch onto a single guiding concept.
Bizup and Williams offer a practical trick:
Before drafting a new section, jot down the characters you’ll be writing about. This could be people, but it could just as easily be abstract ideas, like “coherence,” “topic sentences,” or “clarity.”
Then, as you write, put those characters or central concepts in the subject position of your sentences as often as possible. This not only strengthens coherence but also helps you avoid getting sidetracked.
If you go several sentences without mentioning a core character, you may have veered off course.
—
You see, clear writing isn’t about dumbing things down but about showing respect—for your reader’s attention, time, and need to understand your ideas without mental gymnastics.
Bizup and Williams remind us that clarity is not just a matter of style. It’s also a matter of grace.
So, the next time your writing feels like it just isn’t “clicking,” zoom out.
Ask yourself:
“Am I building a puzzle that adds up to a picture?”
If not, maybe it’s time to reexamine your subjects, your topics, and how well they serve your readers’ journey from sentence to sentence and idea to idea.
After all, great writing doesn’t just flow. It means something.
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Wednesdays: Write with the Pen of the Masters”
Who doesn’t find content writing to be a skill that requires a lot of practice and effort?
In fact, many people may even find copywriting very intimidating.
However, you can be a good writer as long as you have the right tools. You won’t always get things right the first time, but with enough time and practice, you’ll get the hang of it!
When you write copy for any brand or for your company, your aim is to make an impact and…
… to get people to remember.
Getting people to remember means getting consumers to buy your product or avail of your service.
… and when you get your content to deliver the results you want, THAT is great copy!
Every Wednesday, we publish content based on tips and insights from the masters of content writing, copywriting, and storytelling.
Become more familiar with ways to write great copy that helps you gain ROI from your efforts, drive profitability, and achieve your business goals.
Learn time-tested tactics that better capture the attention of your target audience, and maximize the benefits of great copywriting.
Hope you find this week’s insights interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next Wednesday’s “Write with the Pen of the Masters!”
Cheers,
Dyane Diasanta
Senior Content Writer
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
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