Unit 4 · Topic 4.4

4.4 Comparison and contrast as a method of development

Comparison and contrast put two or more things side by side on the same points to show how they're alike and different, often so that one explains or judges the other. Writers organize comparisons subject by subject or point by point, and they use analogies to explain the unfamiliar through the familiar.

Key terms

comparison
contrast
analogy
block method
point-by-point method

What comparison-contrast does

Comparison shows similarities; contrast shows differences. Writers use them to explain (something new makes sense next to something known), to evaluate (one option looks better next to another) or to reveal (a contrast exposes an injustice or contradiction). Every comparison is built on a category: the point on which the two things are compared, such as cost, safety, freedom or effect on families.

Compare like with like

A fair comparison uses the same categories for both sides. If you compare two after-school jobs, compare pay with pay and hours with hours. Comparing one job's pay with the other job's location tells readers nothing. Mismatched categories are a common flaw in weak arguments, and they're easy to miss in your own writing.

Category	Job A (written for this page)	Job B (written for this page)
Pay	$13 an hour	$15 an hour
Hours	Weekends only	Three weeknights
Commute	5-minute walk	25-minute bus ride

Two ways to organize

Subject by subject (the block method): everything about A, then everything about B. It's easy to write but can feel like two separate essays. Link the halves with clear transitions.
Point by point: category 1 for A and B, then category 2 for A and B, and so on. It keeps the comparison sharp and is usually better for arguments.

Analogy

An analogy compares two things that are different in most ways but alike in the way that matters for the argument. "A school without a library is like a kitchen without a pantry" explains the library's role through something familiar. Analogies persuade by making an idea feel obvious, but they break down if the two things differ in the very way that matters. When you analyze an analogy, ask what it highlights and what it hides.

Comparison in your own essays

In the argument essay, comparison can sharpen weak evidence. One example of a city that banned cars from its downtown proves little; two cities compared on the same points, such as how many shoppers came and what happened to nearby traffic, tell readers much more. In the synthesis essay, comparing what two sources say about the same category is one of the clearest ways to put them in conversation. Whatever you compare, finish with a sentence that says what the comparison proves.

Worked examples

Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.

Example 1
Douglass's contrast on the Fourth of July
In his July 5, 1852, speech in Rochester, Frederick Douglass told his antislavery audience: "The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn." Explain how Douglass uses contrast to develop his argument.
Show the solutionHide the solution
1. Step 1: Find the category of comparison: what Independence Day means to the audience versus to Douglass and the people he represents.
2. Step 2: Track the matched pairs: "shared by you, not by me"; "life and healing" versus "stripes and death"; "yours, not mine"; "rejoice" versus "mourn." Each pair compares the same thing on the same point.
3. Step 3: Notice the structure: point by point, sentence by sentence, with short, balanced sentences that make each contrast sharp.
4. Step 4: Explain the effect: the same holiday, the same "sunlight," produces opposite results. That exposes the gap between the nation's ideals and its practice of slavery.
Answer: Model paragraph: Douglass builds his argument from a series of matched contrasts, each one measuring the same thing, the meaning of American independence, for two groups. The "rich inheritance" of liberty is "shared by you, not by me"; the "sunlight" that brings "life and healing" to his listeners brings "stripes and death" to the enslaved. Because every pair compares like with like, the conclusion is hard to escape: one holiday cannot honestly mean freedom for some and bondage for others. The short, balanced sentences, ending in "You may rejoice, I must mourn," make the gap feel as stark as the difference between a celebration and a funeral.

Common mistakes

Comparing two things on different categories (one's cost against the other's appearance).
Listing similarities and differences without saying what the comparison proves.
Using the block method without connecting the two halves, so readers have to do the comparing.
Accepting an analogy without asking whether the two things really match in the way that matters.

On the exam

Reading questions may ask what a contrast or analogy "serves to" do. Look at the category being compared and the conclusion it pushes readers toward.
In Question 3, comparing two examples on the same criterion, such as two historical leaders' responses to criticism, can make your reasoning sharper than presenting them separately.

Connected topics

Videos

Comparison / Contrast Essays
Smrt EnglishWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Rhetorical Mode Series: Compare & Contrast
Stanly Community College English DepartmentWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
How to Write Compare and Contrast Essay with Examples| Block Method - Point by Point Method
Think & LearnWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Point-by-Point vs Block-Style Essay
Free EnglishWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Check yourself

4 questions on 4.4 Comparison and contrast as a method of development. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.

Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river! I still keep in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the somber shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it, every passing moment, with new marvels of coloring.

I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home. But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon the river's face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have looked upon it without rapture, and should have commented upon it, inwardly, after this fashion: This sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling 'boils' show a dissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder are a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the 'break' from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very best place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night without the friendly old landmark.

No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat. Since those days, I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a 'break' that ripples above some deadly disease. Are not all her visible charms sown thick with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally, and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade?

Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883), Chapter 9. As a young man, Twain trained as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, which meant learning to "read" the water's surface for hidden dangers.

Question 1 of 4

The passage is organized primarily as a comparison of

Question 2 of 4

In paragraph 2, Twain returns to the log, the slanting mark, the boils, the lines and circles, the silver streak and the dead tree in nearly the same order as in paragraph 1. This structure is effective mainly because it

Question 3 of 4

In paragraph 2, the "slanting mark" from paragraph 1 becomes a sign of "a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody's steamboat." This change illustrates Twain's point that

Question 4 of 4

The comparison to a doctor in paragraph 3 primarily serves to

0 of 4 answered