Comparison and Contrast

The primary aim of comparing and contrasting in college writing is to clarify meaningful, non-obvious features of similarity and difference. In this case, comparison means showing similarity or likeness, and contrasting means showing difference or distinction. Comparing and contrasting is a vital skill in writing and critical thinking, and even essays that are not explicitly “compare-and-contrast” assignments require this skill as a means to clarify and sharpen your ideas.

Indeed, this skill was traditionally valued and lauded as the intellectual qualities of wit and judgment: wit being the ability to see creative connections between things that normally seem quite different, and judgment being the ability to draw important distinctions between things that normally seem quite similar. For example, wit would be intelligent explication of how the journeys of Moses and Odysseus follow the same important steps–that would be a strong use of comparison. And, for example, judgment would be an intelligent clarification of why inequality is essentially different from poverty, and why public policy should focus on the latter–that would be a strong use of contrast.

There is no real point in explaining obvious or insignificant similarities and differences, of course, nor is there much of a point in comparing two similar subjects, or contrasting two different subjects. But this is where students most struggle with comparison and contrast: identifying obvious features or features that provide no real insight into their subjects.

For example, it would be a failure of thought and writing skill to spend time contrasting horror movies and romantic comedies by pointing out that horror movies typically involve more terror and violence than the love and hijinks of a romantic comedy. The two kinds of films are already different, so contrasting them in such a way adds no real insight. And it would be an equal failure to compare horror movies and romantic comedies by pointing out that they are both genres of cinema and that involved directors, producers, and actors. Although those would be similar features between different things, they are obvious similarities, so they fail to show meaningful connections.

Why do student writers so often fail in such ways? One reason is that listing the obvious is a quicker and simpler activity than real comparison and contrast, which is rigorous and requires both imaginative and critical thought. Another reason is the fear of being wrong, or of being informed that you are wrong, which is ever-present when venturing a new insight or creative idea. You can avoid being wrong by stating only the obvious and superficial, but the result of such safety is the failure to compare and contrast, thereby defeating the purpose. Instead, you must risk being wrong by seeking unique and significant connections and distinctions. And then you can do your best to use the writing process stages of revision and editing to clean out the bad ideas and sharpen the good ones. Regardless of the result, the mere act of going through this risk and process further conditions your imaginative and critical thinking, and further hones your writing skills.

Categories and Criteria

Comparison and contrast often work by engaging in classification, which means explaining how your subjects can actually fit a different type of category than readers would typically realize, or how your subjects should not be placed in their typically assumed categories. Although classification is often treated as a different type of writing assignment, it is often a version of comparison and contrast–or comparison and contrast are versions of classification.

For example, writers such as Sarah Jilek and Michael Wilmington have published essays in which they assert that the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life is essentially film noir, a genre which would otherwise seem like the opposite of Christmas movies. This is the use of categories, taking a subject from one category and placing it in a new category, but this classification works by drawing comparisons between the style, theme, and structure of this Christmas movie and those same qualities of film noir.

Or your could take two subjects and classify them together in the same category through comparison, such as arguing that the films Home Alone and Die Hard are both essentially horror movies. That would require drawing comparisons between both examples films–family and action genres, respectively–and the films that typically fit the horror genre. Or you could argue that Home Alone is essentially a type of Die Hard movie, which would mean treating the latter as a kind of category of its own.

All of this can also be done through the lens of contrast. For example, Home Alone is generally regarded as an example of the fun-loving family genre, but you could argue that the movie is actually inappropriate for children. That would involve contrasting what is featured as comical in Home Alone–violence, child abandonment, home invasion, vigilantism–with the category of family films, shedding light on important distinctions between the two.

Related to this use of categories is the use of criteria. Criteria are standards or qualities that candidates must meet or include. For example, criteria for a passing essay might including (1) a minimum of 2,500 words, (2) the use of MLA format, and (3) the citation of at least seven sources. Failing to meet one criterion of these three, such as the minimum word count, would mean that the candidate essay does not fit the category of a passing essay, and it would thus fail.

Criteria can help sharpen and clarify your thinking about categories, and about how your subjects compare to and contrast with them, and with each other. You can establish criteria in your essay, explain what they are and why, and then you can apply your subjects to those criteria as candidates to see how they compare and contrast. Using the above examples for instance, you could determine five features that a Christmas movie must have, and then you could walk Home Alone through each of them to see if or how well it meets all five, and then you could walk Die Hard through each of them and see if or how well it meets all five. This would be comparing and contrasting through the use of criteria.

There are many advantages to using criteria, such as the organization and expansiveness they lend automatically to essays, but this approach does add the extra stage of establishing the criteria, and that often requires rigorous critical thinking in order to come up with criteria that truly work. For example, a student might find it natural to say that the criteria of a “ball sport” are that (1) it must involve two opposing players or teams, (2) it must be competitive, determining a winner through scored points, and (3) the guided movement of the ball must score those points. These three criteria would allow basketball, football, soccer, and tennis to fit the category of “ball sport,” but baseball would fail to meet the third criterion: in baseball, points are scored by the player reaching home, not the ball. So the student who established this criteria would have to apply critical thinking to notice this discrepancy, and then do the work to go back in and revise the criteria–or perhaps make the argument that baseball is not a ball sport, which would be a kind of contrast essay.

Again, finding a new or unique category for a subject, and making that re-classification make worthwhile sense, requires both creative and critical thinking. Such are the rigors and aims of comparison and contrast.

Conclusions and Judgments

One difficulty of comparison and contrast is that a worthwhile conclusion can sometimes seem evasive. Even if you can point out significant similarities or differences between your subjects, you might not have addressed the natural question, “So what?” What does it matter that your two similar subjects are significantly different? Or that your two different subjects are significantly similar?

Especially for essays focused on contrast, this difficulty can be addressed by seeking a conclusion of judgment. That means determining which of your contrasting subjects is better, a kind of “this versus that” essay. If, for example, you were contrasting two different film versions of Hamlet, you could drive all of your points of contrast toward a conclusion of which version was better. The most careful and organized way to level such as judgment in an essay is to use criteria, as noted above.

For essays focused on comparison, this kind of judgment can work by elevating one of the compared subjects. In other words, you might compare two subjects, such as Hamlet and The Lion King, in order to conclude that The Lion King should be taken more seriously as literature. This would be comparison using a kind of judgment as a conclusion or ultimate point: that the lesser Disney story is similar to the greater Shakespeare story, thus elevating the lesser. And the use of criteria helps here too, as does the use of categories.

There are other types of conclusions available as well, but you must be mindful of the need to include some ultimate point or answer to, “So what?” An essay that shows its readers significant similarities and/or differences must also so them why that matters.

Example

See the following essay as an example of comparing and contrasting in which the writer, Wes O’Donnell, takes two concepts that are so similar as to be considered synonyms in some cases, and then clarifies the vital distinction we should make between them, all the while providing insight through context and origin. The primary focus here is on contrasting two similar subjects, but the essay takes time to establish at least one important and non-obvious way the two are similar. Finally, this essay addresses the difficulty of concluding a compare/contrast essay by establishing a meaningful judgment–which of the two similar ideas is better–and clarifying why.