Comparison/Contrast Essay

Very shortly you should receive back from your writing coach the full theses for your essays. Please take some time to read through the comments and/or recommendations your coach provided and make whatever changes are necessary. 

Your task this week is to use your revised full thesis to guide you in composing a first draft of your comparison/contrast essay (Just that one. We'll start on the analytical essay next week). Below you’ll find the same information we provided last week, explaining the basics of this type of essay. Refer to the lessons we've provided so far (Chapters 1, 2, and 3). Focus on building a strong, persuasive argument and arranging your paragraphs in the most effective order. Content and structure should be your emphasis for this first draft. 

Remember, however, that you will have two more opportunities to work on this paper, and your writing coach will be helping you along the way. Don’t get anxious and don’t spend too much time perfecting it. The idea of a first draft is to get the basic content and structure in place. We’ll work on style and mechanics later.  

Note: Any changes you make to your full thesis are for your own benefit. Do not submit a revised thesis this week—just the first draft of your essay. 

The Comparison/Contrast Essay 

You can compare and contrast things without expressing an opinion. This however, wouldn’t be an essay in the technical sense. So, for the first paper, you will compare and contrast two things or ideas, demonstrating how one of them is superior to the other. You must pick a side. 

Since this is your first stab at an essay for us, we recommend choosing a simple topic. Be sure you choose something you are familiar enough with to write about intelligently using only your brain—this is an essay, not a research paper, so we don’t expect you to do any study or research to prepare.  

Below is a list of potential topics. It’s designed to help you start thinking about thesis possibilities for the Comparison/Contrast essay. Feel free to ignore the list and choose something else if you have your own idea. These are not thesis statements, by the way; they are simply categories of things or ideas that you might consider comparing and contrasting.