Sunday, October 5, 2008

Structuring Compare and Contrast Essay

Compare and contrast essay is quite intricate to write unlike other types of essays. Why? The writer has to efficiently present the details in a way that readers can clearly determine the similarities and differences of the two subjects. In this regard, there are several ways to write this compare and contrast essay.

Apparently, the most important thing to consider in this type of essay is structure. There are many wonderful compare and contrast essays that fall victim to the woes of bad structure - making ingenuity futile.

The rules on how to write a general essay is almost the same with the structure of a compare/contrast essay. To date, the following two formats are most likely the more applicable structures for such complex essay type:

  • Introduction. Generally it is a lead into the thesis statement.
  • Subject 1 discussion. Covers only the first subject of the comparison and contrast. Does not mention subject 2 in this first portion.
  • Subject 2 discussion. Does not discuss Subject 1 in this section. This portion of the paper is dedicated to presenting Subject 2 in great detail.
  • Subjects 1 and 2 discussion. This is the comprehensive analysis of both subjects in several paragraphs.
  • Conclusion. The conclusion is the generalization of the thesis.
And…
  • Introduction. Most likely a leading statement.
  • Comparisons of Subjects 1 and 2. This section tackles only all the similarities of the two topics. There must be at least three comparisons in which example from both topics of comparisons is given.
  • Contrasts of Subjects 1 and 2. This section function like the preceding part only that it does only contrasting points of the two topics.

  • Conclusion. Evidently this part does the wrapping up everything in the paper.

To efficiently write a compare and contrast essay its structure is crucial – it is because any confusion of the points of similarities or differences of the subjects will make the entire piece illogical.

No comments: