Chapter 5 - Kinds of Essays (Comparison-Contrast Essay)

Comparison-Contrast Essay

In comparison and contrast essay, you have to compare two (in some essays several) things, problems, events or ideas- and evaluate their resemblances and differences. This type of an essay advances and develops your critical thinking as well as your argumentation and understanding of the importance of the events and things that you compare. If you are assigned to compare and contrast two ideas or theories, you should cautiously evaluate the importance of different and similar facts and features.

Thesis is one of the most important parts of your comparison/contrast essay. It is the central feature of your essay, the guide of your writing process. Unlike thesis in other types of essays, thesis of compare and contrast essay should be more specific, and should be backed up with highly argumentative analysis. Te most common question that should be asked in the designing of this type of the thesis is "why?". You should show the importance of the things and events that you compare.

The plan of your essay.

As we have mentioned earlier, the contrast/compare essay is a specific type of an essay. That is why composing this type of an essay might differ from other ones. The following are several methods of organizing and designing this type of an essay:

1.      Item by item.

First, list all information on the first subject of comparison. Then you should go further, and list all points of another subject of comparison. Then you should do the same with the third subject (and so forth, depending on the number of subjects of comparison).

Certainly, if your paper is not long, one paragraph might comprise several items; however it is better to devote one paragraph to one item of comparison. The danger of such comparison is that your paper might be transformed into a simple list of points of comparison. Do not succumb to this mistake. Remember, your tutor would like you to compare and contrast these subjects, not just providing him with the list of differences and similarities. In other words he expects some analytical work from you. In order to complete this type of an essay one should develop and design analytical thesis and paragraph (one or several of them, depending on the topic of your essay) that can combine your several points together.

2.      Point-by-Point.

This method is used to compare each point of the objects, rather than describe one thing at a time. For example, if you are assigned to compare two sport venues, your first paragraph might comprise the comparison of their locations. Your second one can be devoted to the description of the designs of the venues. In the third paragraph you may describe sport events that these venues host.

There is not any universal rule in the designing of compare/contrast essay. Certainly, it should have logical, comprehensive and consistent structure. Remember, that the last point is of particular importance, because your reader will judge your essay by it. If, for example, you attempted to prove that the stadium “Universal” is much better than the stadium “Albano” you should wind up by stressing the fact that stadium “Universal” is better, rather than leaving reader with the statement that “Albano” might look better as well. If you think that differences rather than similarities are more important for your essay, you should end up with stressing differences, and visa versa.

Source: http://www.bestessaytips.com/compare_and_contrast_essay.php

You can also watch the video for further information about comparison-contrast essay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAVaVDboAos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rNg17UhGr0

Finally, to further clarify how it would be possible to say what you want to say in your writing, consider which of the following options would you prefer, and why?  To support your point in each essay, what characteristics would you choose to contrast, and what support would you use?  Can you think of any other topics that might be fun to contrast? 

 

Example(s):

Example 1

The Differences between Modern Culture and Traditional Culture

            As we know, now we live in postmodern era. In Postmodern make big changes of our life. It is very influential for the culture today. And now the Modern Culture is more widely used than the Traditional Culture. The cultural differences make many changes in our life, like music and lifestyle.

            Music is one of arts that had always liked. Everyone likes music, whether it is modern music or traditional music. Urban society prefer to modern music rather than traditional music. And most of the society prefers to learn modern music than traditional music even the modern instrument is more complicated than traditional instrument. Actually, the traditional instrument is easier to be learn because the instruments are very simple does not require energy and thought too much, just hear the knock from the other musical instruments. Very few people want to learn traditional music today. Why it can be? In fact, the traditional music is our effort to promote Indonesia to another countries with our traditional music as our own culture.

            Lifestyle is a pattern of life in the world that expressed in activity, interests and opinions. Lifestyle describes how a person interacts with his environment. Lifestyle covers fashion and food. We know that now the modern fashion is more used by society than traditional fashion, because the modern fashion is simply to use. Traditional fashion is more difficult because it has many accessories. The traditional fashions usually wear in the certain moment like wedding. Other example for lifestyle is food. We can not live without food. The differences between traditional food and modern food is traditional food is more difficult to cook because the ingredients consist of many spices. But, modern food is simple to cook, most of the food are instant, for example instant noodle, chicken nugget and so on. Without we realize, today we tend to use Modern Culture an abandon Traditional Culture. Most of society thinks that modern is better and more simple than traditional. 

            In addition, modern music and traditional music has so much differences. The sounds of them are very contrast. If we hear the traditional music, we can hear the mystics from the sound and we feel something that we can not explain it. But modern music like rock, pop, jazz or classic, we can relax with the sound, but we can not feel the sound sensation like traditional music. As we know, the traditional music is very simple instrument, but it can produce the sound like that. Even the traditional music has characteristic like that, the society prefer to choose the modern music. It is because of modernism which served many simple things and make new paradigms to the society.

            In other hand, we can look big changes in our lifestyle today. Before we enter to the modern era, our ancient use the traditional fashion like kebaya in their daily life. But now, the society prefers to use the modern fashion like T-shirt. We seldom see someone wear traditional fashion in daily activity, especially for citizen. It’s been totally different, right? Not only fashions, our food today also have big change experience. We can found junk food scattered. We do not realize that junk food hypnotize us with their service because of it instantly to be serves. Whereas we know that junk food is unhealthy if we consume it too much, but we still consume it. And many people were died because of they were not controlled their food. It can be happened if we prefer to consume traditional food than modern food because traditional food is more healthy than modern food.

            Finally, the cultural differences make many changes in our life, like music and life style. It is okay if now we live in modern era, but it would be better to safe our tradition, because not all the traditional culture is worse or ancient.

 Example 2

The comparison and contrast between watching movies at home and at the cinema.

Watching movies is one of activities that can help people to release stress. Nowadays, people not only can watch movies at cinema but also they can watch at home. It can give opportunity for someone who does not like go to the cinema or can not go to there because they are too busy with their work. We can find some distinct differences and similarities between watching movies at home and at the cinema, whether it is about the seats and time to break. But, we are allowed to eat snacks when watching on both of the place and of course, both places spending money for something. So, there are some differences and similarities between watching movies at home and watching movies at cinema, the differences; the seats when watching movies and time to break while watching movies, the similarities; both are allowed to eat snacks and need money to spend. 

First of all, there are differences about the seats when watching movies. At home, people can sit in anywhere as they want to make themselves feel comfort, such as lie on bed. In contrast, the seat at the cinema has designated so that people can not sit in anywhere they prefer. Since the cinema is a public place, someone can not makes any noises while the other people are concentrating in watching the movie. But, when watching at home, silence is not really necessary.

Secondly, there are also have differences about time to break when watching movies for each place. When watching movies at home, people can take a break anytime they want. If they want go to the bathroom or somewhere else, they have the power of the remote control to paused it for awhile and they can enjoy their favorite scenes as many times as they want. Unlike when watching movies at the cinema, the movie is shown without any break because people do not have any power to control it.

Besides the differences, there are also some similarities about watching movies at home and at the cinema. The similarities could be found when watching movies both at home and at cinema. So, there are some similar things while we are at home or at the cinema for watching movies, such as; allowed to eat snacks and, of course, need money to spend.

However, watching movies at home is similar to watching at the cinema about eating snacks. We can bring any snacks, such as; popcorn, nachos, chips, or sodas to eat when we watching movies. Food is not prohibited. Especially if we were at home, we can take any foods from our own refrigerator.

In addition, both of when we watching movies at home and at the cinema are need money to spend, whether it is for the tickets or to buy the DVD. If we want to watching movies at home, we need to buy or rent the DVDs. As well as if we want to watching movies at the cinema, we need to buy the ticket to go in. So, both of them are spending money.

Overall, there are two for each differences and similarities between watching movies at our own comfortable house and watching movies at the cinema. The main points on the differences are whether the seats are designated and whether there are any time to break. And also there are similarities in eating snacks and spending money when watching movies. Furthermore, these distinct differences and similarities are one of the many comparisons and contrast that we can find in our life today.