Doyle Online Writing Lab

Compare and Contrast

Paper Goals

Comparison and contrast papers ask you to use comparison as an analytical tool. Your thesis should indicate how comparing the two texts or passages increases your understanding of the works. For example, if you answered question number two, you would want to indicate how juxtaposing Greek art or architecture with Greek drama enriches or challenges your understanding of ethos, pathos, and rhythmos. Your thesis should NOT just say that the two texts are "similar but different" or that their understanding of ethos, pathos, and rhythmos is "similar but different": after all what two things in the world aren't "similar but different"? I would like to see you playing with the structure of your essay in order to highlight your analysis. Please see the reverse side of this sheet for some possible complex models.

Evaluative Criteria

All criteria from previous papers apply to this paper as well: these include proper quotation format, a thesis that is a debatable assertion, concrete evidence for support, and original ideas (Invention). In addition, I will be looking for the following:

  1. In your reading notebook, you should be keeping a list of "never again"s. These include all of the grammatical and technical errors that you made in your first two papers and your drafts. When you proofread your paper, you should be checking for these errors and making sure that they "never again" occur. (Style)
  2. Complex, analytical organization. (Arrangement--see above and below.)
  3. Increasing attention to and awareness of the cultural context of the work. (Invention--to be discussed in paper conferences.)
  4. Correct citation of primary and secondary sources. When in doubt, check the MLA handbook in the library, but books should be cited in alphabetical order at the end of your paper as follows: (Style)

Works Cited

Stallybrass, Peter and Allon White. The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. Ithaca, NY: Cornell U.P., 1986.