Professional Documents
Culture Documents
English 101-012
GETTING STARTED:
1. Choose a topic. What are you going to compare and/or contrast?
2. Develop a claim/thesis.
3. Using Venn Diagram or chart, Generate a list of similarities and differences.
4. Next, you must decide which of them are interesting, important, and relevant enough to be
included in your paper. Ask yourself these questions:
Whats relevant to the assignment?
Whats interesting and informative?
What matters to the argument you are going to make?
Whats basic or central (and needs to be mentioned even if obvious)?
Overall, whats more importantthe similarities or the differences?
5. Complete some research on your topic. (Not extensively)
6. Organize your points. You may outline, use post-its, utilize other writing strategies.
REQUIREMENTS:
Rough draft will be submitted in the form of a hard copy. DOES NOT HAVE TO BE
SHARED ON GOOGLE DOCS.
Final draft will be shared with the professor via Google docs and published to your
assignments page on your Weebly.
Rough Draft with a completed peer review form will be submitted on class on final due date.
3 pages in length, 12-pt Times New Roman font, double-spaced, MLA format
DEADLINES:
ENG 101-012:
Draft #1: Friday, October 30th
Final Draft: Friday, November 6th
ENG 101-023:
Draft #1: Tuesday, November 3rd
Final Draft: Tuesday, November 10th
*Solicit teacher feedback on Google docs. This is optional.
English 101-012
The danger of this subject-by-subject organization is that your paper will simply be a list of
points: a certain number of points (in my example, three) about one subject, then a certain
number of points about another. This is usually not what college instructors are looking for in a
papergenerally they want you to compare or contrast two or more things very directly, rather
than just listing the traits the things have and leaving it up to the reader to reflect on how those
traits are similar or different and why those similarities or differences matter. Thus, if you use
the subject-by-subject form, you will probably want to have a very strong, analytical thesis and
at least one body paragraph that ties all of your different points together.
A subject-by-subject structure can be a logical choice if you are writing what is sometimes called
a lens comparison, in which you use one subject or item (which isnt really your main topic) to
better understand another item (which is).
English 101-012
Point-by-point:
Rather than addressing things one subject at a time, you may wish to talk about one point
of comparison at a time.
- If you have just a little to say, you might, in a single paragraph, discuss how a certain point of
comparison/contrast relates to all the items you are discussing. I might describe, in one
paragraph, what the prices are like at both Peppers and Amante (pizzarias); in the next
paragraph, I might compare the ingredients available; in a third, I might contrast the
atmospheres of the two restaurants.
- If I had more to say about the items I was comparing/contrasting, I might devote a whole
paragraph to how each point relates to each item. For example, I might have a whole
paragraph about the clientele at Peppers, followed by a whole paragraph about the clientele at
Amante; then I would move on and do two more paragraphs discussing my next point of
comparison/contrastlike the ingredients available at each restaurant.
- There are no hard and fast rules about organizing a comparison/contrast paper, of course. Just
be sure that your reader can easily tell whats going on! Be aware, too, of the placement of
your different points. End with your strongest point.