How To Write A Comparative Essay: Easy Steps
What is a comparative essay? This is not something new in the academic circles. Though, students still have issues related to this essay type. If you have a task to write a comparative essay, you need to learn basic rules of dealing with the assignments. Like any other essay type, a comparative essay has its structure and rules to follow. Do you know how to tackle the essay easily? There are lots of means that a student may use to work with the task. You can use various approaches to find the one that fits you the most. Thus, let us shed light on the task and tell you in more detail how to work with the subject.
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Make sure to read thoroughly the topic
Before writing an essay, you need to read the initial. One of them is the topic of the essay. When you get started, you need to read it carefully. Make sure you take this step seriously. If you underestimate this step and overlook the topic, the results will be vague.
A comparative essay is all about comparing texts and analyzing them. If there is a broad topic, you will need to explore it carefully. There can be different aspects for consideration. As a writer, you need to be thoughtful about working with the material.
If you read the topic scrupulously, you can get the idea behind the words and move your research in the right direction. What’s more, you can get more about the genre and style of writing if you read the topic carefully.
In the main theme, there could be 1 or 2 quotes. These quotes are essential for your understanding. If you misuse them or don’t get the idea, you can spoil the whole writing. To work with the quotations, you have to grasp the context. Furthermore, your task is to define the paramount ideas rendered in the topic’s text.
Consider each text equally
As we’ve already said, writing a comparative essay means working with two issues, texts or phenomena. The process of research includes actual comparison. In the texts suggested in the paper, you will find both differences and similarities. Try to pay equal attention to every section. If you tell more about how the issues are different, you can ignore the important similarities.
For this reason, prepare ahead. Research the phenomena beforehand and write down the basic features of every text that you’ve noticed. This will save you time later and ensure great text organization. Give the same weight to each part of the text. This way, the text will look consistent and reader-oriented.
Structure the text properly
Like in any other essay type, here you need to follow a basic academic paper writing. This means that you need to use an introduction, then complement it all with several body paragraphs and finish it up with a conclusion. This is a basic task that every essay writer needs to know.
In the introduction, you alert the reader and give him a brief idea about the following context. In the first opening part, the reader has to understand what is your attitude to the problem. Here you should give the main idea about the text and give a transition to the next paragraphs.
Now you have to come up with comprehensive body paragraphs. This is the part of the paper where you have to be extremely careful with what you write. This part is aimed at informing the reader. Here you should place all your suggestions and assumptions. What was the comparison like? What findings have you come up with? What was different, and what was similar in the two cases? All these questions should be answered in the body paragraphs.
The final part is the conclusion. Here one needs to resume the writing and sum up the information. It is important to work out the settings and organize the material properly. Never put new or redundant information here.
There are 2 basic approaches that you can use:
- Block approach. This way, you approach each issue separately. You devote paragraphs to each challenge and address the issues separately. In the final parts of the text, you need to come up with the conclusion and compare the results. At first sight, you can find this approach an easy one. But it could be a real challenge to keep the reader interested while considering the subjects in isolation.
- Woven approach. This is the contrastive method. It is the opposite of the previous one. Here you have to draw the relevant findings from both issues simultaneously. This is thought to be a more sophisticated method. If you aren’t used to it, you can get confused and lose the line. Beginning the story with a single idea or statement could help you stay oriented and keep the right direction. To make the text less considerate and easy to read, you can use transitive words. They will make the reading smoother.
Pay attention to differences
Similarities are usually easier to work with. You can simply put 2 texts together and find how they relate to each other. But if you stay away from the differences, you can lose a considerably big part of the research. It will be an interesting discussion if you derive your conclusions from the differences. This way, you can immerse yourself in exploring the contrasting points and involve interesting ideas from them.
Make use of linking words as well
Inspire of the method that you’ve chosen you to need to be fluent in the writing. You can’t simply put words and phrases together. There should be a coherent connection between the ideas in the text. These could be not only separate words or phrases. You can make use of linking constructions. These are the essential elements that will make your text read more easily. There are intertextual elements aimed at indicating similarities, contrast, or other things important for the reader.
But keep it in mind that these phrases have to be snorted for a particular purpose. You cannot use them just for no reason. If you redundantly put the phrases, you can spoil the text. These phrases can guide the reader and help him or her grasp the main idea behind the paper.
Find out appropriate textual elements
If you want your paper to be interesting and fascinating, try to use textual elements when possible. This way, the discussion will have depth and hook the reader. To impress the reader, you can use not only words and phrases. Try to be more creative and make use of intertextual elements. Shape the text, structure it differently, consider the style of the writing.
When dealing with comparative essay writing, you can research more the intertextual connections in the text. Do you know what style of writing to choose? There’s the only way to get the idea of the best writing style. It is to experiment and find the most appropriate option. Create various texts and see what feedback from the teacher you get. There’s no single format for comparative essays. The result can be different and can depend on different things. The way you deliver the material can change. But the ideas are what remain the same. And that’s basically what the examiners want to see in your comparative essay writing. They appreciate not mainly the form but the content. So, you should have no worries about experimenting with styles.
