Compare and Contrast Essay Topic: Researching Your Question

Introduction

There are many types of research essays, but none of them quite compare to the Compare and Contrast essay that you might do from time to time. Compare on contrast essays come in many forms, but when you have to do a little research to really understand and talk about your topic, it might seem a little daunting at first. After all, it is like you have two different topics to talk about, and then you had to compare and contrast them! However, it is quite doable if you are looking to do well, all it takes is a little ingenuity and hard work.

Compare and Contrast Essays

Compare on contrast essays focus on comparing and contrasting. The first thing you are going to want to realize is that you have two components, or subtopics, that you are going to have to explore and find the relation between. First, you are going to want to list and discuss the similarities of the topics. Next, you have to look at the differences, and more importantly, what makes them different and what the consequences of these differences are. Here you will want to see what happens, and these two things may have an important relationship between each other. This often is found by exploring the similarities.

Researching your topic

The thing you want to do when researching for a compare and contrast essay is to remember to give yourself equal time and resources to look at each element. If you mismatch your efforts, you will find yourself saying a lot more about one thing than the other, and for a compare and contrast essay this way not do. It is better to do deep research on each side, and write what you find on note cards. In this way, you can look through both stacks of note cards and find similarities between your topics. This will allow you to start to see the relation between these things that you want to talk about.

Synthesis

At this point, you will want to bring your topics together. There are a few things you can do here if you want to succeed, and a lot of this has to do with the structure of your essay. You are going to want to introduce your topics, but then there are a couple of directions you can go. You can talk about one side, then the other, then bring them together, or come up with subtopics and in each topic talk about their similarities and differences. Both are valid, and which one you choose is up to you.