Compare/Contrast Essay Expanding on Your Paragraph Writing

Compare/Contrast Essay You will be writing your essay—due FRIDAY! Essay is like an expanded paragraph. Same structure and components apply—intro, body, and conclusion—only now they are their own paragraphs instead of sentences. Same organization will be used. You will use either A-B order or All of A, then All of B order.

Components of your Essay You will have an introductory paragraph with a THESIS, which will be somewhat similar to the TOPIC SENTENCE used for your paragraph. It will tell your reader what two things you will be discussing and will hint whether you are comparing or contrasting. You will need to expand by adding more information BEFORE your thesis (hook, background info to engage readers, etc.) The points that you listed in the body of your paragraph (location, population, salary, etc.) will now become the body paragraphs of the essay. Therefore, you will be expanding on those points by providing more information, details, and specifics. Your concluding sentence of your paragraph will now become the concluding paragraph of the essay, so you will need to expand a little more on what you had.

Organization of Essay Just as with your paragraph you will need to decide if you want to set up your essay as All A, then All B order (whole-to-whole) or A-B order (part-to-part). All A, then All B will mention all the info about A first (each point will have its own paragraph), then all of B will follow (those same points will have their own paragraph. A-B order will have one point (part) per paragraph and will discuss that point from A then transition to that same point (part) for B. If your organization worked for you in your paragraph writing, keep it. If it didn’t work so well, now is the time to switch or tighten up what you had.

Practice with Some Examples Turn to page 238 in your Evergreen books. Read “E-Notes from an Online Learner” What is the thesis statement? Is this essay a comparison/contrast? What word(s) in the thesis indicate this? What organization does this writer use? What would an outline look like?

Practice (Continued) Take out a piece of paper. Read the essay under Practice 1 and answer these questions: What is the thesis statement? (2 pts) Does this essay compare or contrast? What words tell you this? (2 pts) What are the topic sentences? Write them all. (6 pts) What organizational pattern does this writer use? How do you know? (2 pts) What points are discussed for A and B? (2 pts) Monday 10/27