Compare and Contrast Essay Compare and contrast essays identify
the similarities and highlight the differences between two
topics. When writing compare and contrast essays, it's best to
select topics, pre-write by developing categories, develop a
thesis and organize the essay. With compare and contrast essays,
point-by-point essays are guided by category while block essays
are guided by topic. Let's talk about compare/contrast essays.
Now, I find these to be some of the most difficult types of
essays to write because it's hard to know where you're going and
exactly how you're going to tell the similarities and
differences between two things. So a couple of vocabulary things
to straighten out first. When you're given an essay, if you're
asked just to compare, all they want to know is the
similarities, so compare means how they're the same. If you're
asked to contrast two things, then you're being asked to tell
people how they are different. So just be aware, when you're
doing compare/contrast, sometimes you ma