ORGANISING FLOW   As we have seen in the module on the "given-new" principle, it's important to put familiar information at the start of sentences, and save until the end any new ideas, or ideas that we want to bring to the readers' attention. This sequencing of information can give a sense of 'flow' (also often called 'cohesion') to your writing. However, flow alone is not enough. Your text must also have a sense of unity ('coherence'), that you are discussing something, not simply introducing/ briefly touching on a list of ideas. We can imagine cohesion ('given-new') as a river of ideas, full of movement, flowing smoothly in a single direction from one idea to the next. Like rivers, texts also have deeper stretches (akin to Finnish 'suvannot') where there is less movement in the onward flow. Although these stretches are part of the same flow, they allow the writer to develop and deepen the discussion within a particular theme. It is this conscious focus on a theme that creates the unity or 'coherence' of a text. This module shows you how you can improve the coherence in your texts. The following pages highlight the importance of choosing which information you place in the 'given' position at the start of the sentence (creating a focus) and explore the typical patterns (topical progression) used to maintain and develop topics. The module also provides you with language strategies that help you to shift items around in your sentences in order to keep the focus on the right topic.

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