What Makes A Strong Compare/Contrast Essay - Tools And Examples

A comparison essay is one of the most interesting essay types students compose during their academic careers. It is also known as the compare and contrast essay. The compare and contrast essay, as the name suggests shows a comparison of different aspects of the same subject or compares to two different subjects, objects, places, personalities, ideas or yet anything at all with each other. Writing a comparison essay is not a very tough job because all essays follow the same basic format. Every essay starts with an introduction, followed by the body and ends at a conclusion. Now, what makes a comparison essay stand out from the rest of your class lies in how you approach it and explain it to your readers?

You might have excellent ideas for your paper, but does your reader get to them and understand the real meaning behind your essay is important.

The introduction is a critical part of your essay. This is where you need to engage your audience and beg them to ask for more by using intelligent ideas. If you do not succeed in keeping the reader's attention here, then the rest of your efforts are waste. You can hook your readers by adding the names of famous personalities, giving shocking factual figures, building interest by telling a short story etc. You can use any of these techniques but you need to present your topic and give background details. This will help your reader can understand the point of your essay.

The body paragraphs come after the introduction. This is where you talk about the real purpose of your essay. You need to talk about both sides and show why they are similar or different and how can you prove that. First, you need to state whether they are alike or different, then you need to give strong evidence to prove this point to your readers.

The last paragraph in your comparison essay is the conclusion, this is where you need to show your readers that you succeeded in addressing the thesis statement. You need to summarize your entire essay in a way that it is brief, precise and does not seem repetitive.

In a comparison essay specially, it is important to use concrete examples and transitions to help the reader relate to your subject. You need to use transitions so that the reader can tell if one part ended and you started addressing the other one.