essay
KevinLiang
English 99/Laughtland
Essay 3: Comparing and Contrasting Two Essays on College Success
Goals: Instructors in many different departments will ask you to read and respond to specific texts, demonstrating your understanding of the material you read by developing an original thesis within a clearly organized academic essay. This assignment offers practice in reading carefully, presenting two authors’ points fairly, sharing your own thoughtful and thesis-driven response which connects the ideas discussed in two sources, smoothly introducing and integrating your sources, and using MLA format. This essay asks you to read closely and move from summarizing and describing specific details into stating larger ideas which can be expressed in a thesis statement; you might think of this as expanding from “local” ideas (specific observations about each source) to one “global” idea (a more comprehensive claim and thesis which connects both sources). In addition, this essay offers practice using the comparison and contrast method of organization, a commonly assigned mode of writing with many useful applications in school and beyond.
Reading: Please read Chapter 7 on "Comparing and Contrasting" (116-135), and section D in the “Quick Research Guide” in the Appendix, with special attention to pages A-28 through A- 34 in The Bedford Guide for College Writers. Be sure to also review the handout on comparing and from the UNC Writing Center in the Essay 3 Module as it shares some really helpful strategies.
For your essay, you’ll be writing about two of the five essays listed below:
Carol Carter, “Reading Skills: A Key to Short- and Long-Term Career Success” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-j-carter/reading-skills-a-key-to-s_b_3390766.html
Joanne Jacobs, “Engagement Is Key to Community College Success, Author Says” http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/03/30/engagement-is-key-to- community-college-success-author-says
Ruben Navarrette, “Success Doesn’t Depend on Going to a Prestigious College” http://www.seattlepi.com/opinion/commentary/article/Success-doesn-t-depend-on-going-to-a- 7234968.php
Keith O’Brien, “What Happened to Studying?” http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/04/what_happened_to_studying/
Annie Murphy Paul, “Are College Lectures Unfair?” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/opinion/sunday/are-college-lectures-unfair.html?_r=0
Your Topic: You’ll be writing about what you think is the significance of specific similarities and/or differences that you notice when reading any two of the nonfiction essays linked above on the theme of college success. The idea is to give your reader a thoughtful, well-reasoned perspective on the importance of reading these two essays together: what do you gain in terms of thinking about college success by considering the viewpoints presented both of these essays and not just one author’s viewpoint by itself?
Here are a couple of organizing ideas that might help you in coming up with your thesis...
• Consider how the two essays are complementary. Does reading the two essays together give the reader a fuller view of a theme that you think is important regarding the topic of college success?
• Consider how the essays reveal disagreement or variety in terms of the authors’ perspectives on college success. Do the authors point to very different factors when it comes to what helps or hinders students in being successful in their learning (and later in their careers)?
Assignment: Working with two essays from the list above, compare and contrast those essays, and illustrate and explain your reasoning as to the main point(s) of comparison and/or contrast you find important for the reader to consider when reading both pieces together. Your thesis should make an overall claim which states why you think it is useful, informative, interesting, significant, meaningful, etc to compare/contrast the two essays in the particular way(s) you describe in your paper.
You need to come up with a dominant idea, which means that it’s not enough to simply list ideas (similarities and differences) about each essay: you have to make a larger point. By “larger point,” I bet you can guess that I mean that you need to have a thesis statement, which means that you have to make a specific claim in your discussion of the two essays, showing how the details/examples you’ve noticed in each piece help to prove the larger point you're making about what the reader can learn from comparing and contrasting these essays in the way(s) you explain in your paper.
Your evidence to support your thesis will be based on the specific details/examples you can point to within each essay to back up your main idea. You’ll need to use at least two or three quotes from each essay to give concrete examples in your paper, making sure to smoothly integrate each quote rather than simply “dropping” it into your paragraph.
By giving examples and explaining your points carefully, you allow the reader to see your basis for comparison/contrast, and understand why these similarities and differences are important to consider. In writing your paper, you can assume that your reader has read the two individual essays you're discussing; in reading your paper, he/she wants to understand the particular connections between them that you think are important.
Generating Ideas: It can help to begin with your own perspective as a reader. Reflect on your own responses as you read the essays. Read each of your chosen pieces several times, and make notes with each reading. Then try freewriting about the following questions: what are the main things you notice about these essays; do you see more similarities or more differences; what effect do the essays have on you as a reader, and why do you think they have this effect?
Remember that you can look at what you interpret the essays to mean, but also you can look at techniques you see the authors using: for instance, how would you describe the tone of each essay? Are the authors using lots of concrete examples or very few? Do you notice any images or metaphors? Just as we saw poets using literary devices in Essay 2, authors use these kinds of tools in writing nonfiction essays, too, and these tools have an impact on us as readers; we just don’t always realize this until we go back and read more
closely and realize how the author constructed his/her piece of writing using literary elements like images, metaphors, word choice, and so on.
Structure/Organization: There are a couple of different options for structuring a comparison/contrast paper, as explained in Chapter 7. Please also see the PDF file from the UNC Writing Center in the Essay 3 Module for some useful ideas. I also like this handout: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/composition/comparison.htm.
Two common patterns of organization for comparison/contrast are the “opposing” pattern (also called “block” or “subject-by-subject”) and the “alternating” pattern (also called “point-by- point”). Our textbook gives detailed templates for both patterns.
With the opposing pattern, in the body of your paper, you discuss the essays one at a time: you first have a paragraph in which you discuss one essay on a series of specific points of comparison/contrast (not mentioning the second essay in that paragraph), and then you discuss the second essay on those same points in the next paragraph, referring back to the previous paragraph to clarify your ideas.
In the alternating pattern, you compare/contrast the two essays first on point one, then point two, and so on; this means you talk about both essays together in all of your body paragraphs, showing how they each relate to specific points of comparison/contrast which are important to your discussion.
Specs: Your essay should be 3 to 5 double-spaced pages in length. Be sure to state your thesis clearly in a succinct statement at the beginning of your essay. Support your thesis by referring to specific details you’ve noticed in the essays you are discussing. Different people notice different things when they read, so you need to be specific to try and help your reader look again at the essays and see the same things that you notice. There’s no one “correct” way to read an essay or to interpret what it means or why it is interesting or significant, but you must back up your ideas by pointing out specific details.
As usual, I’ll be looking for strong topic sentences, coherent paragraphs, clear organization, and sufficient evidence and explanations for your main points. Don’t forget the details like giving your essay a title and using consistent verb tense! I suggest that you stick with present tense when writing about something you’ve read; write as though what you’ve read about “is happening” in the present. I will (of course!) be watching for spelling, punctuation, and grammar
Use MLA format, and remember to include a “Work Cited” list for this essay. You’ll find the guidelines for using sources according to MLA format in the “Quick Research Guide” in the Appendix of The Bedford Guide for College Writers (pages A-28 through A-34). You can also refer back to the Integrating Sources handout in the Essay 2 Module for ideas on how to smoothly introduce the quotes you’re using from the two essays.
Remember that Essay 3 cannot be revised. I will give feedback on your essay plan in the DB, and be sure to take time to stop by the Writing Center if you want additional feedback on your draft before you submit your final paper!