How to write a comparison and contrast essay

The first thing you need to decide is the topic of your paper. What do you want to compare and contrast?

After you have decided on your topic, you need to think about your thesis statement, which is the beginning sentence. You need to state specifically what you are comparing and contrasting in your essay. 

For example, you decide you want to compare and contrast two short stories. Think about the short stories you want to compare and contrast.

Now, you have to decide how you want to do the comparison and contrast. Are the stories by the same author or two different authors? Do you want to compare themes? Do you want to compare settings? Do you want to compare the protagonists?

Let's say you want to compare and contrast the characters of two different short stories by two different authors. Your thesis statement needs to state your main purpose of the essay.

After you have written your thesis statement, you are ready to prepare your notes for your essay. As you read the two short stories that you have chosen for your essay, you will need to take notes.

You can use notebook paper or a spiral notebook where you can keep all of your notes together. You will write a list of the facts you want to compare in both short stories.

You also need to make sure you have the pages written down where you found the facts because you might want to refer to them later.

When you have that list completed, you can start on your contrast facts. You will do the same thing you did for your comparison facts.

Once you have your comparison and contrast facts written out and the pages, you can start writing your paper.

When you are ready to write your comparison section, you need to make sure you have your comparison list on both stories. Then, you can start writing the paragraph on how the  two protagonists in both stories are similar.

After you have completed your section, you need to go back and review your work.  You can check for any mistakes and how smoothly it reads.

In addition to correcting your mistakes, you can review your list of information and make sure you have included everything you wanted to in your section.

After you have finished writing the section on comparing your two characters, you will start the next section on contrasting the two main characters in the two short stories you have chosen.

You will do the same thing as you did when you compared the two characters.

When you have completed that section, you are ready to add the two sections into a complete essay. 

You will also need a transition statement that connects the two sections smoothly.

Finally, you are ready to read through your paper and see if there are any mistakes.

After you have read everything over and corrected any errors, you have completed writing a comparison and contrast essay.

Basic Essay Skills: Principles of the Comparison Contrast Essay

ESL-Comparison Contrast Essays