Consider the alternating method if you are able to identify clearly related points between A and B. It also tends to produce a more tightly integrated and analytical paper. Professors often like the alternating system because it generally does a better job of highlighting similarities and differences by juxtaposing your points about A and B. Finally, you may certainly include more than three pairs of alternating points: allow the subject matter to determine the number of points you choose to develop in the body of your essay. To use the alternating method, you just need to have something noteworthy to say about both A and B in each area. Note that the French and Russian revolutions (A and B) may be dissimilar rather than similar in the way they affected innovation in any of the three areas of technology, military strategy, and administration. Military strategy and the Russian RevolutionĪdministrative system and the French RevolutionĪdministrative system and the Russian Revolution Military strategy and the French Revolution New technology and the Russian Revolution For instance, a comparative essay on the French and Russian revolutions might examine how both revolutions either encouraged or thwarted innovation in terms of new technology, military strategy, and the administrative system. In the alternating method, you find related points common to your central subjects A and B, and alternate between A and B on the basis of these points (ABABAB …). In Mistry’s story, by contrast, no real growth occurs.Īlthough Darwin and Lamarck came to different conclusions about whether acquired traits can be inherited, they shared the key distinction of recognizing that species evolve over time.Īlternating method: Point-by-point pattern While Callaghan’s “All the Years of Her Life” and Mistry’s “Of White Hairs and Cricket” both follow the conventions of the coming-of-age narrative, Callaghan’s story adheres more closely to these conventions by allowing its central protagonist to mature. A more complex thesis will usually include both similarities and differences. Create a thesis statement that reflects their relative weights. Once you have listed similarities and differences, decide whether the similarities on the whole outweigh the differences or vice versa. Develop a thesis based on the relative weight of similarities and differences The list you have generated is not yet your outline for the essay, but it should provide you with enough similarities and differences to construct an initial plan. Once you know your basis for comparison, think critically about the similarities and differences between the items you are comparing, and compile a list of them.įor example, you might decide that in Great Expectations, being a true gentleman is not a matter of manners or position but morality, whereas in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, being a true gentleman is not about luxury and self-indulgence but hard work and productivity. If so, you will need to develop a basis for comparison, that is, a theme, concern, or device common to both works from which you can draw similarities and differences.ĭevelop a list of similarities and differences Developed by you: The question may simply ask that you compare the two novels.The basis for comparison will be the figure of the gentleman. Provided by the essay question: The essay question may ask that you consider the figure of the gentleman in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.The assignment sheet may say exactly what you need to compare, or it may ask you to come up with a basis for comparison yourself. Make sure you know the basis for comparison events (e.g., the Great Depression and the global financial crisis of 2008–9)Īlthough 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.texts (e.g., Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Macbeth).figures (e.g., GDP in the United States and Britain).theories (e.g., capitalism and communism).positions on an issue (e.g., responses to midwifery in Canada and the United States).These items will differ depending on the assignment. Re-Imagining & Reinventing Undergraduate EducationĪ comparative essay asks that you compare at least two (possibly more) items.
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