Writing Compartive Essays
Writing Comparative Essays
• encouraging you to make connections between texts or ideas • engage in critical thinking & go beyond mere description or summary to generate interesting analysis:
- when you reflect on similarities & differences you gain a deeper understanding of the items you are comparing, their relationship to each other & what is most important about them.
Although the assignment may say “compare,” the assumption is that you will consider both the similarities and differences; in other words, you will compare and contrast.
Establishing a Basis of Comparison…
• Objects must share some significant characteristics….. (same class or general category) • no basis of comparison if there is no common element
• If the similarities & differences between the objects are all simply obvious the reader of the essay is certain to be bored…. So the basis of comparison should go beyond the obvious…
When 2 subjects are very similar, it is the contrast that may be worth developing more When 2 subjects are not very much alike, you may find their similarities enlightening.
Bees and People = absurd???
….differ in species, physical structure, intelligence both are: - social animals that live in complex social structures, - have tasks to perform & roles to fulfill in their respective societies = so we could write but focus on the common elements that seem most provocative = social structures & roles
Bees and Jeeps Human Beings and Golf Tees = NO few points of comparison = very trivial ones bees & jeeps = travel great distances = dumb similarity people & tees = needed to play golf = dumb similarity
= no significant basis of comparison = NO C&C essay
YOU CANNOT WRITE A C&C ESSAY IF THERE ARE NO SIMILARITIES .... everything on the planet has differences so the aim here is to find similarities and then develop differences….
Points of Comparison (& contrast)
• treat the same, or at least similar, elements for each subject: Novel A Major
• encouraging you to make connections between texts or ideas • engage in critical thinking & go beyond mere description or summary to generate interesting analysis:
- when you reflect on similarities & differences you gain a deeper understanding of the items you are comparing, their relationship to each other & what is most important about them.
Although the assignment may say “compare,” the assumption is that you will consider both the similarities and differences; in other words, you will compare and contrast.
Establishing a Basis of Comparison…
• Objects must share some significant characteristics….. (same class or general category) • no basis of comparison if there is no common element
• If the similarities & differences between the objects are all simply obvious the reader of the essay is certain to be bored…. So the basis of comparison should go beyond the obvious…
When 2 subjects are very similar, it is the contrast that may be worth developing more When 2 subjects are not very much alike, you may find their similarities enlightening.
Bees and People = absurd???
….differ in species, physical structure, intelligence both are: - social animals that live in complex social structures, - have tasks to perform & roles to fulfill in their respective societies = so we could write but focus on the common elements that seem most provocative = social structures & roles
Bees and Jeeps Human Beings and Golf Tees = NO few points of comparison = very trivial ones bees & jeeps = travel great distances = dumb similarity people & tees = needed to play golf = dumb similarity
= no significant basis of comparison = NO C&C essay
YOU CANNOT WRITE A C&C ESSAY IF THERE ARE NO SIMILARITIES .... everything on the planet has differences so the aim here is to find similarities and then develop differences….
Points of Comparison (& contrast)
• treat the same, or at least similar, elements for each subject: Novel A Major