1. AN ASSESSMENT ON COHERENCE IN THE
NARRATIVE AND PERSUASIVE COMPOSITIONS
Barabas, Cris D.
Burdeos, Jeanne Roujette R.
Opina, Kenneth G.

2. FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDY
 Strid’s (1998) Coherence in the Narrative
and Persuasive Writing of Adolescents
 Halliday and Hasan’s System for Analyzing
and Classifying Cohesive Ties in Witte and
Faigley (1981)
 Bamberg’s Holistic Scale of Coherence in
Strid (1998)

3. THE PROBLEM
This study aimed to assess the coherence in the narrative
and persuasive compositions of selected Advanced
Composition (English 101) students of the University of San
Carlos.
Specifically, this study sought to answer the following
questions:
1. What are the cohesive markers used in the selected
compositions of the student-participants?
1.1 Reference
1.2 Substitution
1.3 Ellipsis
1.4 Conjunction
1.5 Lexical reiteration and collocation

4. THE PROBLEM
2. How are the cohesive markers used to achieve
coherence in the write-ups?
3. How does genre affect the coherence level of
compositions based on Bamberg’s Holistic Coherence
Scale?
4. What is the relevance of educational attainment or
background on achieving coherence in compositions?

5. METHODOLOGY
Research Design
 This study used the descriptive quantitative type of research.
Research Environment
 Advanced Composition classroom at the University of San
Carlos-Main Campus
Research Participants
 10 Advanced Composition students randomly selected
 5 graduate level students (LLB)
 5 undergraduate level students
Research Instruments
 Halliday and Hasan’s System for Analyzing and Classifying
Cohesive Ties in Witte and Faigley (1981)
 Bamberg’s Holistic Scale of Coherence in Strid (1998)

6. METHODOLOGY
Research Procedure
 Student-participants were randomly selected
from the 25 Advanced Composition students.
 Narrative and persuasive compositions written
by the students were collected by the
researchers.
 The compositions were analyzed based on the
cohesive markers using Halliday and Hasan’s
System for Analyzing and Classifying Cohesive
Ties and coherence using Bamberg’s Holistic
Scale of Coherence.

7. TABLE 1. FREQUENCY OF USED COHESIVE MARKERS IN THE COMPOSITIONS
Cohesive Markers
Frequency
Total Percentage
(%)Narrative Persuasive
Reference 36 142 178 35.5
Substitution 16 24 40 8
Ellipsis 0 0 0 0
Conjunction 99 183 282 56.1
Lexical Reiteration
and Collocation
0 2 2 0.4
TOTAL 151 351 502 100

8. USE OF COHESIVE MARKERS ON ACHIEVING COHERENCE
 Cohesive markers were used to create cohesion
at the sentential level and eventually produced
a unified whole paragraph:
 Conjunctions – created logical ties across sentences
as well as connecting ideas from the initial to the
succeeding paragraphs within a composition
 Reference – used in the compositions to refer to
the same idea or person previously mentioned in
the preceding sentences or paragraphs to avoid
constant repetition of the word
 Substitution – used to avoid redundancy

9. TABLE 2. COHERENCE RATING BETWEEN NARRATIVE AND PERSUASIVE COMPOSITIONS
Coherence Rating
Frequency
Total Percentage
(%)Narrative Persuasive
Coherent (4) 2 4 6 30
Partially Coherent (3) 4 5 9 45
Incoherent (2) 4 1 5 25
Incomprehensible (1) 0 0 0 0
Unscorable (0) 0 0 0 0
TOTAL 10 10 20 100

10. TABLE 3. EFFECT OF EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT ON ACHIEVING COHERENCE
Coherence
Rating
Frequency Total
LLB Under Graduate LLB Under
GraduateNarrative Persuasive Narrative Persuasive
Coherent (4) 2 3 0 1 5 1
Partially
Coherent (3)
1 2 3 3 3 6
Incoherent (2) 2 0 2 1 2 3
Incomprehen-
sible (1)
0 0 0 0 0 0
Unscorable (0) 0 0 0 0 0 0
TOTAL 10 10 20

11. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
 Conjunctions, reference, and substitution, respectively,
were the commonly used type of cohesive markers in
the narrative and persuasive compositions of the
student-participants.
 Cohesive markers were used in the compositions to
create a logical connection between sentences and
paragraphs.
 Persuasive compositions had more cohesive markers
used than in the narrative compositions.
 Persuasive compositions were more coherent than
narrative compositions.
 Graduate students produced more coherent outputs ,
both narrative and persuasive, compared to the
undergraduate student-participants.

12. CONCLUSIONS
 Cohesive markers, particularly conjunctions are used in
order to create a logical connection of ideas between
sentences and paragraphs
 The use of cohesive markers aid in creating a coherent
piece as thoughts are properly aligned and tied since the
former is a sub-element of the latter.
 Persuasive compositions are more coherent than
narrative compositions due to the increase in the use of
cohesive markers in the former than the latter.
 Writers with higher educational attainment produce
more coherent outputs since they have more exposure
in writing compositions. Furthermore, constant use of
the language in writing hones the skills necessary in
achieving coherence.

13. RECOMMENDATIONS
 There is a need for writing instructors to give emphasis on
using cohesive ties in their discussions with reference
specifically on how to use the cohesive markers presented in
the earlier part of this study.
 A constant follow-up on the students’ progress on producing
cohesive outputs is also recommended as well as peer editing.
 Writing can also be incorporated in grammar courses so that
writing skills will be honed together with grammar skills.
 The researchers suggest that Bamberg’s Holistic Scale of
Coherence be developed into a textual-schematic form or an
analytical rubric type of scale to make it more detailed.
 A replication of the same study can be conducted with research
participants taken from non-writing classes.
 A similar study can also be conducted with English majors as
student-participants to check if there is really a significant
difference from the writing outputs of non-English majors.