1. •When you get to choose what you’re comparing and contrasting, or what elements of two things you are comparing and contrasting, be sure that the elements have enough in common or different to justify the comparison or contrast.
•Additionally, be sure that the differences/similarities aren’t so obvious that your essay seems pointless.
•AVOID THE TRIVIAL!
•Trivial: Hester and Dimmesdale both live in Boston; Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are both men.
•Important: Hester and Dimmesdale define themselves by their relationship to sin; Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are both hiding truths from the world.

2. •The thesis should tell readers what to expect in your essay, identifying not only the subjects to be compared and contrasted, but also the point you will make about them.
•Your thesis should indicate whether you will concentrate on similarities or differences, but should address both.
•A format to use: thesis should highlight the central concern of the essay (comparing or contrasting) by placing it as the independent clause, and the lesser concern as the dependent clause.
•Example: “Despite the fact that television and radio are distinctly different media, they use similar strategies to appeal to their audience.”
•This essay will focus mainly on similarities.

3. •Be sure that you treat the same (or similar) elements for each subject you discuss. Example:
Text A Text B
Major characters Major characters
Audience and purpose Audience and purpose
Themes Themes

4. •Two basic structures: item by item and topic by topic.
ITEM: would be a thing from the text that represents an idea of the text
TOPIC: would be an idea from the text which uses items to represent it

5. This could be thesis, for example, from an item by item C&C for TSL:
Item by item: it could be a few different things, but it’s easiest to thing of this in two basic ways:
Characters (Hester/Dimmesdale) in a story
Rhetorical devices (symbolism, diction, tone).
Either way, the characters or the rhetorical devices would exemplify a theme of the story.
This could be thesis, for example, from an item by item C&C for TSL:

6. Item by Item Example
Because both Hester and Dimmesdale are affected by society’s definition of sin differently, they both exemplify Hawthorne’s transcendentalist belief in the importance of non-conformity.
This essay is easy to see in structure.
BP1 will be the Hester paragraph.
BP2 will be the Dimmesdale paragraph.
There will be one theme both BPs cover, and that will be the importance of being self-reliant.
You can do the same thing with rhetorical devices.

7. Item by Item: Rhetorical Device Example: “Thanatopsis”
Here would be my supposed thesis: Bryant exemplifies the romantic belief in the purity of nature in his poem “Thanatopsis” through his use of metaphor and positive diction. Again, the structure is clear, right? What is each of the BPs going to be about?

8. •In the topic by topic format, you address all of the points for the first topic at once, and all of the points for the second topic at once.
•Introduction: “Despite the fact that television and radio are distinctly different media, they use similar strategies to appeal to their audiences.”
TV audiences (Topic 1 ) Radio Audiences (Topic 2)
Men (point 1) Men (point 1)
Women (point 2) Women (point 2)
Children (point 3) Children (point 3)

9. Writing using C&C
Use topic by topic comparison for longer, more complex essays. (RECOMMENDED.) Here, you would have BPs that cover different topics (or ideas or main points) of a text. Hawthorne uses the characters in his novel to portray his transcendentalist beliefs in self-reliance and the purity of nature. BP1? Self-reliance. BP2? Purity of nature. In each of the BPs, then, I can pull in whatever characters or rhetorical devices I want to prove my interpretation of the novel.

10. Practice Writing with C&C Essay
Return to the two Chopin shorts we read. Create BOTH a item by item and topic by topic outline for the following prompt: Compare and contrast Chopin’s treatment of her female protagonists in “The Storm” and “The Story of an Hour.” Feel free to structure your outline as a t-chart or some other graphic representation.