The word ‘assignment writing‘ refers to all writing tasks that are assigned by tutors to assess the student’s understanding of the key objectives of a course. An assignment is a piece of written language as it is presented in the form of a literary document that contains various headlines, a lead, a body, and a logical conclusion. Cohesion is the most important thing needed in the discourse or cohesiveness of a text and is one of the criteria that help in making a sequence of sentences to give a structured text. Thus, cohesive devices help assignment writers establish a relationship between the different parts of a text or related sentences with each other. This article aims to describe the use of cohesive devices in assignment writing along with their types and examples so students can draft a better manuscript to be submitted as an assignment.
Cohesive devices- A brief introduction:
Different authors define cohesive devices in quite different ways. Connor defined cohesion devices as signals that highlight relations among sentences. According to Millward, cohesive devices are words or phrase used within a discourse that generates a set of expectations related to what will come next in a text. It means the cohesive devices enable readers to capture the connectedness in the meaning of what proceeds and what follows. Thus, in academic writing, the words and phrases that help authors in signalling relations between previously mentioned concepts and upcoming events will be called cohesive devices.
Uses of cohesive devices in assignment writing:
As far as an assignment is concerned, the sole purpose of using cohesive devices is to inform the reader of a certain type of information. In this case, to increase the readability of content, the use of cohesive devices is necessary. Cohesive devices in assignments help maintain the logical connection between all main ideas discussed. It helps increase the clarity of the content and brightens the chances of scoring good grades as well. However, while using it, one must avoid inaccurate, inadequate, and overuse of such signalling words. One of the biggest reasons behind the fact that assignments completed by good assignment writing services help students secure good grades is that their experts are pretty well aware of the correct use of cohesive devices.
Types of Cohesive devices along with examples:
The division of cohesive devices into different types originally belonged to Halliday and Hasan in 1976. According to this division, cohesive devices are of five types:
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Conjunction:
A conjunction is a cohesive device as it can be used to describe the relationship between clauses. It helps connect different clauses by demonstrating clear relation between the meaning of the independent and dependent clauses.
For example;
The public transport in California is cheap and reliable.
Students in Kindergarten enrolled in the 2022 session are naughty but intelligent.
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Lexical cohesion:
Lexical cohesion refers to cohesive devices that make a connection based on the words used in the text. It discusses the selection of the words or vocabulary that seem to synchronize with the one used previously. To put it simply, lexical cohesion merely depends on the selection of words. All in all, it does not have any link with the grammatical and semantic connection between different parts of a text; rather, it suggests the meaningful relationship between the words selected for writing an assignment.
For examples:
Which dress will you wear for the birthday celebrations of my son helping today? I would like to wear a green frock to match the theme of the party. The use of the dress and frock is an example of the lexical collection as the word frock is selected based on the word dress used in the previous sentence.
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References:
Characters and participants are more important in storytelling, but in academic writing, they also matter a lot. A scientific story in assignment writing also revolves around certain ideas, facts, and news which are related to each other. In order to link different characters in an assignment, references are useful to identify the main participants throughout the text.
For examples:
‘I went to Harry’s house last night. He was looking awful.’ Here ‘He’ refers to that harry was looking awful, not the speaker; thus, in this way, the reference word helps readers know the exact doer.
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Substitution:
The literal meaning of the word substitution ‘to replace one word with another’ indicates that in assignment writing substitution help authors avoid the use of a single word repeatedly. Stated in another way, substitution is a type of cohesive device that helps writers avoid repetition of the lexical item by using an alternative. ‘Dummy words’ are words that have the same meaning but look apparently different’ and are used as a substitute for making the text engaging.
For example:
Making a business report takes time, but it is necessary to complete it by tomorrow, so please finish. In this example, instead of using a business report repeatedly, it was used as a cohesive device.
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Ellipsis:
The fifth type of cohesive device important to use in assignment writing is the ellipsis. It refers to the act of omitting unnecessary details by skipping some words or leaving something unsaid. Ellipsis can only be used if a certain piece of information is not necessary to mention in a text or previously expressed or explained; hence, it can easily be understood by the reader.
For example, Yong saw a pair of leather shoes in the market for just USD 4.00, and you must also find so. Here the pair of leather shoes is omitted from the second clause as the previously mentioned information is enough for the reader to understand the correct meaning.
Final thoughts:
Assignment writing is a task that almost every student has to complete on time for smooth progression in academic life. Completing an assignment to secure good marks is quite easy, but to get the distinction, you must work on minor details as well. Cohesive devices seem minor to students, but they are extremely helpful for making outstanding assignments. By using different types of cohesive devices in academic writing, as shown in the above-mentioned examples, you can improve the quality of content by increasing engagement, clarity, and readability.
