If you look carefully at these essays, you will find many strategies and techniques used to convince the audiences to accept the writers’ arguments. You will want to use clustering and/or listing, probably, as you pre-write for your paper. You may want to consider the following questions as you do this preparation.
What is the thesis of each essay?
What is the tone, occasion, and purpose for writing?
Does the tone remain consistent throughout?
Who is the intended audience?
What is the focus of each main idea discussed?
What is the attitude of each author toward the law? Ju stice? A citizen’s duty? The majority in society?
What comparisons and analogies does the author use?
Does each author clarify why a change is needed? Where?
How practical are the ideas each author suggests?
Under what circumstances do Thoreau and King advocate breaking the law?
Are both essays effectively written? Is neither? Why or why not?
Is one essay more effective than the other?
For you or for the orig inal audience? Why?
Is one essay more focused than the other? For what reasons?
Are these essays equally effective but in different ways?
What argumentative strategies or appeals are used in each essay?
Your essay should identify an idea common to both authors and compare how each author conveys this idea using a stylistic device. Your essay should address attitude and tone and logical or emotional or ethical appeals(including appeals to tradition and authority)
Limit your topic by constructing your thesis carefully.
Select one of the two methods of comparison to structure your paper.
1.Point-by-point presents information about each essay according to the points of similarity or difference.
2.Whole-by-whole presents all the information about one essay before discussing the other. This organization tends to be more difficult to handle.
Use plenty of textual support, of course! Subordinate ideas of lesser importance. Save your