Development by comparing & contrasting

• Successive coverage
• Alternating coverage
• Example
• Signal words

Comparing and contrasting is a strategy you use all the time in your thinking. In comparing and contrasting things, you come to know them and thus can make judgements and form opinions about them. If you were reading the works of one author, you might find two books that you like and compare them at the same criteria, while contrasting the features of each. We constantly compare and contrast people, places, books, classes, TV shows -the list is endless.

Because comparing and contrasting is so basic to the way we think, it is also a very common type of writing. An executive writes a report comparing a new product to a competitor's product; a student of political science writes a research essay comparing the campaigns of two politicians.

Like all strategies for organisation, comparing and contrasting is the result of the writer's thought and purpose. If you think about two similar objects or ideas, you will naturally compare and contrast them. As a result, you may decide that one is better than the other or that both are equal, and your purpose would be to show the findings of your thoughts.

Successive coverage

You can organize a comparative synthesis by first summarizing each of your sources or subjects, and then discussing significant similarities and differences between them. Having read the summaries and become familiar with the distinguishing features of each source, your readers will most likely be able to appreciate the more obvious similarities and differences. In the discussion, your task is to focus on both the obvious and subtle comparisons and contrasts, focusing on the most significant -that is, on those that most clearly support your thesis.

Organization by source or subject is best saved for passages that can be briefly summarized. If the summary of your source or subject becomse too long, your readers might forget the points you made in the first summary as they are reading the second. A comparison-and-contrast synthesis organized by source or subject might proceed like this:

Alternating coverage

Instead of summarizing entire sources one at at time with the intention of comparing them later, you could discuss two sources simultaneously, examining the views of each author point by point (criterion by criterion), comparing and contrasting these views in the process. The criterion approach is best used when you have a number of points to discuss or when passages or subjects are long and/or complex. A comparison-and-contrast synthesis organized by criteria might look like this:

Be sure to arrange criteria with clear method; knowing how the discussion of one criterion leads to the next will ensure smooth transitions throughout your paper.

However you organize your comparison-and-contrast paper, keep in mind that comparing and contrasting are not ends in themselves. Your discussion should point somehwere: to a conclusion, an answer to Why bother to compare and contrast in the first place? If your discussion is part of a larger synthesis, point to and support the larger claim. If you write a stand-alone comparison-and-contrast paper ,though, you must somehow -be that implicit or explicit- answer the why bother-question.

Example

Contrast the two World Wars in light of any four or five criterion you think significant. Conclude with observations. What can your comparative analysis teach us?

• Thesis In terms of the impact on cities and civilian populations, the military aspects of the two wars in Europe, and their aftermaths, the differences between WWI & WWII considerably outweigh the similarities

1. Introduction. WWI & WWII were the most devastating conflicts in human history. Thesis.
2. Summary of main similarities: causes, countries involved, battlegrounds, global scope.
3. First major difference: Physical impact of war.
   1. WWI was fought mainly in rural battlegrounds.
   2. in WWII cities were destroyed.
4. Second major difference: Effects on civilians.
   1. WWI fighting primarily involved soldiers.
   2. WWII involved not only military but also massive non-combatant casualties: civilian populations were displaced, forced into slave labour and exterminated.
5. Third major difference: Combat operations.
   1. WWI, in its long middle phase, was characterized by trench warfare.
   2. During the middle phase of WWII, there was no military action in Nazi-occupied Western Europe.
6. Fourth major difference: Aftermath.
   1. Harsh war terms imposed on defeated Germany contributed significantly to the rise of Hitler and WWII.
   2. Victorious allies helped rebuild West Germany after WWII, but allowed Soviets to take over Eastern Europe.
7. Conclusion. Since the end of WWII, wars have been far smaller in scope and destructiveness, and warfare has expanded to involve stateless combatants committed to acts of terror.

Signal words

COMPARISON	CONTRAST
also both comparative compared to/with draw an analogy/parallel  have in common in/by comparison  in the same manner like make a comparison  much less expected... not only... but also of greater concern rather more significant share the same similarly too	although as against  be opposites be the antithesis of  but especially interesting / noteworthy ... however in/by contrast instead of on the contrary on the other hand though unlike