Compare and Contrast Essay

When you compare things, you show their similarities; when you contrast things, you show their differences. We can really understand only those things that are familiar to us or similar to things we already understand, so comparing and contrasting the unfamiliar with the familiar is one of the most important techniques for writing. You can, and probably do, use comparison and contrast to describe things, to define things, to analyze things, to make an argument -- to do, in fact, almost any kind of writing. When they are comparing and contrasting, for example, two ideas, like corsets and footbinding, most writers structure their essays one of five ways.

1. First compare, then contrast (or vice versa).
2. First do one idea, then do the other.
3. Write only about the comparable and contrastable elements of each idea.
4. Only compare or only contrast.

1. First compare, then contrast (or vice versa).

Writers using a comparison/contrast structure might begin by discussing the
ways in which corsets are similar to footbinding, then they move to a
description of the ways in which the two ideas are different. This method is
probably the one used most commonly.

A quick outline comparing and then contrasting corsets and footbinding shows one way that such a paper might be structured.
I. Introduction
II. Corsets and footbinding are similar.
III. Corsets and footbinding are different.
IV. Conclusion

This structure focuses on the comparison and contrast instead of on the two ideas (e.g., corsetry and footbinding) being compared and contrasted.

A quick, specific, outline of how a paper comparing and then contrasting corsets and footbinding might look:

1. Introduction
2. Corsets and footbinding are similar
3. Both practiced in the far past, through the 19th century, and into the 20th.
4. Both restrict women's movement and impair health.
5. Both practiced by women of all classes, though most people imagine tight-lacing and footbinding were limited to the upper class.
6. To use Veblen's argument, both enhance man's value in the culture to be
responsible for women who were too delicate to work.
7. Both practiced by women on women. Women laced corsets; women bound feet.
8. Corsets and footbinding are different
9. Chinese culture is radically different from that of western Europe and America.
10. Every Chinese woman so bound was deformed for life; only most extreme
cases of tight-lacing did permanent damage.
11. Corsets trivialized by everybody since the end of the dress reform movement.
12. Conclusion

Clearly, the sequence is important. If you begin with the comparison, then the contrast will get emphasis - the logical movement is from thinking about similarities to thinking about differences. If you begin by contrasting the ideas (and then move toward a comparison), the similarities get emphasis.

2.First do one idea, then do the other.

Writers might compare and contrast ideas by treating one idea thoroughly
before taking up the second one. This method is probably the one most students
try first, but many evolve past it into something more flexible.

A quick outline that treats first corsets and then footbinding shows one way that such a paper might be structured.

I. Introduction
II. Similarities (or differences)
III. Differences (or similarities)
IV. Conclusion

A quick, specific, outline of how a paper treating one topic and then the other might look:

1. Introduction
2. Corsetry
3. Practiced in Sumaria, Crete, millennia ago; focus in Western world.
4. Corsetry not exactly the same as tight-lacing.
5. Effects on health: tight-lacing vs stays.
6. Henri II's queen: 15-inch waist with the help of the King's armorer.
7. Dress Reform movement.
8.1880s and 1890s, when women were looking at the possibilities of real
contributions to the political debate.
9. Footbinding
10. Earliest references.
11. Survival rates and the effects on health.
12. Our misconceptions about class -- women plowing fields in mud up to
their ankles.
13. Any girl whose female relatives thought she might be able to marry up would
bind her feet.
14. Simone de Beauvior saw some; Life magazine's photos.
15. When the government made it illegal. Also, how women whose feet had been
bound couldn't really unbind.
16. Conclusion

A structure like this one seems more focused on the ideas being compared and contrasted than on the comparison and contrast itself. The similarities and differences between the ideas do not begin to emerge until the writer gets to the second idea. It is as if the writer is comparing and contrasting (for example) footbinding to corsetry, instead of corsetry and footbinding to each other.

3.Write only about the comparable and contrastable elements of each idea.

Writers might compare and contrast ideas by taking important specific elements
and looking at their similarities and differences. This method requires real control over your subject. A quick outline that compares and contrasts only relevant aspects of corsets and footbinding shows one way that such a paper might be structured.

I. Introduction
II. Element #1
III. Element #2
IV. Element #3
V. Conclusion

A quick, specific, outline of how a paper treating only comparable and contrasting elements might look:

1. Introduction
2. Restrictions on women's movements.
3. Effects on women's health.
4. Economic and cultural value of a helpless female to a powerful male.
5. Women's contributions to their own weakening.
6. Cultural movements against tight-lacing and footbinding.
7. Socio-economic class and tight-lacing and footbinding.
8. Lasting into 20th century.
9. Eastern and western cultures.
10. Extreme cases vs. most women.
11. Conclusion
A comparison/contrast essay like this one would probably focus only on those elements of the ideas that are explicitly comparable or contrasting.
Only compare or only contrast.

4.Only compare or only contrast.

It is always possible, of course, to write an essay that treats only the similarities or differences between ideas. Writers who only compare two ideas sometimes briefly mention the contrast in the introduction and then move on so that they don't lead readers to think they can't make relevant distinctions.

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