Comparative Analysis Essay Writing Guide
This kind of academic assignment is quite widespread in colleges or universities. It aims to show students how to review different types of materials, divide them into separate parts, and analyze each element in turn. Every comparative analysis essay requires in-depth research on the subject, the author's ability for critical thinking, and support for the position indicated in the material analyzed. Preparing the academic paperwork, you should make it fascinating and intelligent for your readers. Any comparative analysis paper may be a complicated task, but if you follow all the steps mentioned in our guidelines, the writing process will become much easier!
What Is a Comparative Analysis Paper?
In order to know what you can expect from the task, fully understanding the comparative analysis concept is vital. A comparative analysis is one of the most popular types of assignments that are often given in colleges or universities. In such paperwork for college or university, you should compare and oppose two different things. Those can be two texts, historical figures, scientific processes, theories, etc. These papers are very popular as college assignments because they are pretty universal: no matter what subject you study or what field you are working in - there are always things that can be compared. A "classic" version of a comparative analysis essay is when you select two similar things with a few critical differences. Or, it can be vice versa: two entirely different things have some similarities which may not even be noticed. Comparative analysis essays help students gain useful expertise, develop analytical thinking, improve their writing skills, the ability to highlight essential information, and, in the end, compare things and support your opinion with relevant facts and actual examples.
Every student should have some skills to write a quality comparative analysis paper. It's challenging and requires a lot of additional elaboration of the materials, but the result you get in the end is worth it. With the help of the comparative analysis approach, you can see how different some similar things might be and vice versa. It takes much time and a lot of effort to prepare an excellent academic assignment, but following the guide below will assist you in achieving the best results!
How To Do a Comparative Analysis
As we mentioned earlier, the comparative analysis paper is a bit tricky when discussing its primary concept. If you have to convince your audience, you should find real similarities and differences based on a specific comparison type. Here comes the challenge - you should analyze both principles you compare. In order to highlight those main commonalities and differences, your task is to learn the subject. Therefore, our advice for everyone who faces creating a comparative analysis paper is to study, explore and read a lot. The best thing is to expand the expertise in the chosen topic. It will serve you to prepare the assignment without any difficulties because everything you need to do after the analysis follows the basic structure guideline and sums up everything you've found on your topic. Those who do everything haphazardly, without any preparation whatsoever, might face problems during the actual writing. Let's take a closer look at some structural aspects of such essays.
The Structure Outlines
Apart from general standard parts like an introduction, primary part, results, discussion and conclusions, which you should include in your paperwork, some other structural characteristics are specific for a comparative analysis assignment.
You can choose among the two ways to build the textual structure:
- Point-by-point method. Choosing this type, you need to compare two subjects (let's name them A and B) using the ABABAB structure. Thus, after selecting the criteria for comparing these two concepts, you first discuss this criterion regarding subject A and then use the same approach for subject B. For example, if comparing the World War I and World War II, the essay's body structure might look like this:
- A Paragraph 1 - military strategies used in World War I
- B Paragraph 2 - military strategies used in World War II
- A Paragraph 3 - weapons and new technologies in World War I
- B Paragraph 4 - weapons and new technologies in World War II
- A Paragraph 5 - scale and duration of World War I
- B Paragraph 6 - scale and duration of World War II
- Block method: Subject-by-subject pattern. Here, you should discuss all aspects of subject A and then move to subject B. This method has the following structure of the body part:
- A Paragraphs 1-3 - The discussion of particular aspects of World War I
- B Paragraphs 4-6 - Discussing the same categories but reviewing the World War II events
In addition to those methods, we recommend building a comparative analysis assignment outline as we did with the essay's body. Outlining the whole paperwork will assist you in organizing your views and opinions and planning out the paper's structure beforehand. Write down all paragraph headings, the key questions you have decided to review and provide all necessary details you want to mention in the academic task.
Good Examples for Comparative Analysis Paper Topics
Everything begins with a subject, so it's one of the most critical aspects of a comparative analysis assignment. Do not be hasty when considering different topics and choose the best one that will be fascinating for your audience. Let's look at some examples:
- Fascism and Nazism: Different or the Same?
- World War I and World War II: The Difference in Events
- Coffee and Tea: The Effects of Both
- Working in the Office or Being a Freelancer?
- Education or Professional Career: What Is Easier and What Is More Difficult?
- Online Dating vs. Real-Life Relations
- Anorexia Nervosa and Obesity: What Is More Dangerous?
- Life and Death: Philosophical Views
Choose a good topic, follow the guideline and try to enjoy the writing process as much as you wish! Great results won't keep you waiting if you like what you're doing. We hope that our guidelines will come in handy to build top-notch paper!
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