Written Expression: Clarity, Coherence and Organisation
What the question is really asking
These items ask you to improve a text: choose the clearest sentence, the best transition, the most logical order, or the sentence that should be deleted. The criterion is always the reader's ease and the text's logic, not personal style.
Concepts to master
- Topic sentences and paragraph unity: each paragraph develops one idea; a sentence off that idea is a deletion candidate.
- Cohesion devices: connectors signal relationships (addition, contrast, cause, concession, example, conclusion). Choose by relationship, not by sound.
- Given-to-new flow: start sentences with known information and end with the new, important point. This makes prose readable.
- Concision: cut redundancy ("advance planning", "the reason is because") and empty phrases ("it is important to note that").
- Reference chains: pronouns and demonstratives must point clearly backwards.
- Logical order: chronology, general to specific, or problem to solution. Mixed orders confuse readers.
Traps to expect
- A transition that is grammatical but signals the wrong relationship (using however where the idea is an addition).
- A sentence that is true but irrelevant, offered as a keeper.
- A revision that is shorter but loses essential meaning.
- A reordering that breaks a pronoun's reference.
Rule of thumb
Ask two questions of every sentence: What job does it do here? and What does the previous sentence promise? If you cannot answer both, the sentence is misplaced or should be cut.
Worked example
"The team tested the prototype. However, the results were encouraging." The contrast connector is wrong because the second sentence supports the first; Indeed or As a result fits the logic.