Defining Compare and Contrast Essays
April 3rd, 2010What exactly is a compare and contrast essay?
When required to write an essay as an assignment, the teacher may ask you specifically to write a compare and contrast essay. Or, instead, choosing this particular essay structure may be your own choice. Anyway, it is convenient to know what are you exactly supposed to write about.
Compare and contrast essays are not hard to prepare. This kind of essay is characterized by a basis for comparison, developed in different point or sequences, and analogies, always between two (or sometimes more) terms.
To compare or to contrast?
The structure is basically the same. The difference is that while a comparison focuses on the similarities between the terms, a contrast essay highlights its differences. For example, you may choose to write a compare and contrast essay about Shakespeare and Milton. You may have a lot to say about them that keeps both writers close to each other (for example, the influence on contemporaries, the fact that they were both typical men of their time, etc). But you may choose to focus on the differences instead, in which case your essay will be a typical contrast.
Before writing the essay
Every student must know that, when writing these kind of essays, they should start by defining their purpose. What shall you write about? Are the terms you chose easy to compare or, instead, you wish to focus on the differences between them? Always consider the audience: are you writing for the teacher or are you supposed to read the essay in front of your classmates? In either way, you will need to catch the reader’s attention. Consider then the points of comparison: you may write in a sheet of paper the facts the two terms have in common, and in another paper, the differences. Which paper has more things written? That simple procedure will show you if you should better write a comparison or, instead, a contrasting essay.
A good essay structure
Compare and contrast essays should have a structure similar to this one:
- An introduction, in where you present the problem and your hypothesis (for example, that there are some similarities between two certain writers, ideas, things).
- One or two paragraphs discussing the less important things (that is, similarities if it is a contrast essay, differences if it is a comparison essay).
- Other one or two paragraphs, now referring to the main things (that is, similarities if it is a comparison essay, differences if it is a contrast essay).
- A conclusion, in where you close your work and give some general ideas on other facts that could have been compared but you chose not to take into account for some reason.
Another possible structure begins by describing the first item, and then describing the second one by comparing different aspects of it with the first one. You may choose this last structure when you need to compare lots of little facts which won’t make for a paragraph on their own.
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