An examination was made into cohesion in expository essays written in Malay and in English as a Second Language (ESL) by Malaysian writers. T-tests performed on the data obtained from a cohesion analysis of text indicated no differences in the amount of cohesion between good and weak compositions written in Malay by native speakers (n=20), or in English by native speakers (n=20) and Malay speakers. Good compositions written in Malay were found to have more intersentence semantic ties (e.g., reiteration and collection) than weak compositions. However, good compositions written in English by native speakers have more intersentence syntactic ties (e.g., reference and conjunction) than weak compositions. The development of content in the compositions written in Malay, in comparison to those written in English by native speakers, indicates a cross cultural variance in conditions for quality. Appended materials include questions asked of all three groups of teachers, topics for conversation written in Malay and English, and abstracts of example compositions. (Author/GLR)