Outline to 1st Draft: Cohesion

Once you have completed an outline, you can start writing your bullet points into full sentences as a first draft. You should have the structure of the thesis and all the information in place already. The focus of the first draft should be to get your ideas on paper and the structure the paragraphs. A sentence will never sound perfect the first time you write it, but do not go back and try to correct or remove it. First drafts should be written in one go, without looking at each sentence critically. You can work with sentence structure, wording, grammar, and punctuation later in the writing process. Your first draft should focus on connecting your ideas into paragraphs.

 

You should think of your thesis not as a summary of many ideas loosely connected to your topic, but as one flowing story with a clear beginning and an end. It is important to guide your reader through your thesis by ensuring that your ideas and chapters are connected to each other. Your thesis is not an encyclopedia with separate pieces of information marked by different headings. Each chapter, paragraph, and topic must connect to the following topic and relate back to the topic of your thesis which remains as a common thread. Each topic should naturally lead to the next topic and you must make it clear to the reader how these topics are connected, and why it is natural to talk about this new topic next. If you cannot make such a natural connection or explain why this connects to the topic of your thesis, consider moving the idea somewhere else or remove it entirely from your thesis.

 

The principle of cohesion helps you to lead your reader from the general to the specific in your thesis, as well as in each paragraph. For more information on how to work on cohesion take a look at the following pages concerning the structure of an introduction and conclusion and sentence structure. All these are principles you should focus on when writing your first draft.