So, our instructor just assigned a compare and contrast essay and we want to know, “How do I write the introduction for a compare and contrast paper?”
A helpful trick to writing a compare and contrast essay is making a list. In fact, we’ll need to make two lists for the similarities and differences related to the actions, objects, persons, or ideas that we are comparing and contrasting. An addition of sufficient background information will help us give readers a good sense of the issue we are addressing. And we’ll also want to draft a thesis statement that helps us focus the attention of the essay. In this article, we will talk more about each of these aspects to help us write a solid introduction for a compare and contrast essay.
Making Lists
A) Make two lists. One will contain the similarities that exist between the items that we are comparing. The other will display the differences. For instance, if we are comparing and contrasting apples and oranges, one list will include the similarities between apples and oranges. Another list will contain the differences between them. A little research of the items we are comparing and contrasting will be useful here, as it can help us find a wealth of similarities and differences.
Example:
Similarities Between Apples and Oranges
1) Apples and oranges are fruit Apples and oranges are round
2) Apples and oranges are sweet Apples and oranges have seeds
3) Apples and oranges have vitamin C
4) Apples and oranges have potassium Apples and oranges have protein Apples and oranges have folate Apples and oranges have fiber
Differences Between Apples and Oranges
1) Oranges have peals
2) Apples come in more than one color
3) The skin of an apple is smooth
4) The skin (peal) and flesh of oranges are one color (orange)
5) Apples have less vitamin C than oranges
6) Apples have less potassium than oranges Apples have less protein than oranges Apples have less folate than oranges Apples have more fiber than oranges
B) If possible, we should categorize the items that appear on our lists. This will help us write a thesis statement later in the introduction. The key here, will be to group as many items on the list into a few relevant categories.
Take our similarities list, for example. We can organize its items into four categories: food type, appearance, taste, and contents. In a thesis statement, the mention of these categories, instead of the several items on the list, allows us to refer to these items in a way that makes the thesis statement more digestible.
Example:
Some of the items on the similarities list correspond to physical attributes of apples and oranges (fruits, round, and seeds). The same is true for the first four items on the differences list. Accordingly, we can group these items into a category that we’ll call physical attributes.
Likewise, the similarities list contains the word sweet. Though we have no other items on the lists corresponding to this facet of apples and oranges, we can still categorize the term under the heading, taste. This may prove useful if we think of relevant items to add to the category later.
The remaining items on the similarities list refer to nutrients that also correspond to points of difference between apples and oranges. Accordingly, we can call this category nutrients. So, altogether we have three categories:
1) Physical attributes
2) Taste
3) Nutrients
Background Information
Once we have a good list of items, and a few categories into which we can group them, we’ll want to consider how our categorized items relate to each other beyond a simple practice of comparing and contrasting them. This allows us to move from merely reporting on an issue to demonstrating its importance to our readers.
Usually, the background information provided in an introduction helps to familiarize readers with a certain topic. However, it can also help create a degree of urgency that prompts the audience to do something with the information. These two points, in turn, crafts an aura of importance that draws readers’ attentions while helping them to gain a general understanding of our topic.
Of course, to provide the kind of background information that informs and creates a sense of importance, it will be useful to choose an arguable topic that is of considerable importance. If we think of fruit in terms of health and healthy eating habits, then we may have an idea that can take us beyond the practice of comparing and contrasting for its own sake.
A more specific version of this idea that will allow us to contextualize our categories for an essay is the question of how visual appearances influence children’s likelihood to eat healthy food, like apples and oranges. With this added context, we find that we have a few building blocks for our thesis statement: three categories for our lists, a topic that allows us to compare and contrast items, and the means to contextualize our comparison as an important issue.
Background information would, of course, require some research. In our case, this research would focus on gathering information about the effects of the appearance of fruit, children’s eating habits, the effects of apples and oranges on children’s health, etc. Once we have completed that research, we would summarize the findings. For the sake of expediency, I have selected three sources. (Of course, you will want to read more sources to get a firmer understanding of the issue.)
The sources that I have chosen are:
1) “Appearance alteration of fruits and vegetables to increase their appeal to and consumption by school-age children: A pilot study” by Louisa Ming Yan Chung1 and Shirley Siu Ming Fong
2) “The Effects of a Visually Appealing and Interactive Snack Activity on Fruit and Vegetable Intake ofPreschool-Aged Children” by Kristen Leigh Clay
3) “Nutrition Faceoff: Apples vs. Oranges” by Sofia Layarda, RD
In order to use these articles in the introduction, we must organize the information they provide into a summary. This will allow us to put the information in our own words, while condensing it into a size suitable for an introduction.
Example:
An apple never falls far from the tree, so it has some distance to roll to improve our children’s eating habits. As research has demonstrated, significant percentages of children do not get the amount of fruit that they need, preferring less healthy snacks that can lead to obesity and other health issues. However, a few studies suggest that interactive activities and changes in the visual appearance of fruit can help increase children’s daily intake. The differences in children’s preferences for particular fruits are also a factor, because so many kinds of fruit have different types and amounts of nutrients. These conditions make it important to determine which kinds of fruit are most, or least, likely to benefit from the interactive activities and visual changes that encourage healthier eating.
This kind of background information would frame an essay in terms of children’s health, while allowing us to proceed with a comparison between apples and oranges.
Thesis Statement
The thesis statement should accomplish three tasks in a comparison essay. It should 1) use the context provided by the background information to 2) foreground the central theme of the essay, 3) which will be evidenced by the three categories we developed. Listing the categories in the thesis statement helps to ground the thesis in the central theme of the essay. In so doing, it organizes the essay into digestible, logical parts that allow readers to move smoothly through a well-constructed argument.
Example:
Despite children’s preference for apples, oranges are better candidates for interactive activities and changes in visual appearance that are designed to increase fruit intake and children’s health, given the fruit’s physical attributes, tastes, and nutrients.
Benefits
Sometimes an instructor will provide specific boundaries for a compare and contrast essay. As an example, s/he may assign this kind of essay for William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Othello, asking you to compare and contrast the theme of betrayal as it appears in both plays. In this case, the focus on betrayal narrows the scope of your examination of Hamlet and Othello, allowing you to uncover the intricacies of one element of the two plays, instead of several.
A compare and contrast essay gives us practice with in-depth critical thinking, a process that allows us to uncover obvious, and not so obvious, connections between a variety of the text’s ideas and its methods of presenting these ideas. Through close readings of an article, book, poem, short story, etc., we can develop a keener sense of a text’s nuances and become much more observant readers and dexterous thinkers in the process.
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