How can I organize a compare and contrast essay?

There are two basic ways to organize your compare and contrast essay. Let's compare cats and dogs as an example. What are some categories that you can use to compare them? Veterinary costs, daily care, and typical personality traits are three possibilities although there are many more.

Now here is an organizational pattern                    In another organizational pattern you
where you cover cats first then dogs:                     cover cats and dogs under each category:

Introduction                                                                   Introduction
Cats                                                                              Veterinary costs
* veterinary costs                                                           * cats
* daily care                                                                    * dogs
* typical personality traits                                               Daily care
Dogs                                                                             * cats
* veterinary costs                                                           * dogs
* daily care                                                                    Typical personality traits
* typical personality traits                                               * cats
Conclusion                                                                     * dogs
                                                                                     Conclusion

I am often asked which organizational style is better. I've found that it really just depends on which one appeals to the writer. It never fails that a writer will end up liking one over the other.

What is an informative synthesis?

Well, OK, so you have to write an informative synthesis. Either you've been given a handful of articles to read or you have to find a handful on your own that address a serious topic. If you are on your own, I hope you look for articles which express different opinions, causes, or solutions to a topic because if you choose articles which all pitch the same idea, then you're in trouble. OK, that said, the basic idea of an informative synthesis is to study what experts are saying and how their positions on the topic interact. (What? Hang on...) After reading all of your articles a few times, imagine the authors stuck in the same room together at a party. Who would argue with whom? Who would back each other up? Who would be the guy saying "True, but...." (There's one of those at every party.) In your paper, you are going to present what each author says about a topic (don't spend the whole paper on summary though!), and then you are going to explain how the authors agree, disagree, or complicate the others' positions with "True, but" info. Be sure your authors are experts and not some dude on the corner with an opinion. Also, speaking of opinion, an informative synthesis explores what the authors think; it is not the time to present your own opinion. Save that for your argumentative research paper.

Song lyrics demonstrate types of essays

Song lyrics sometimes fit well with the different types of essay development such as narration, exemplification, definition, description, persuasion, compare and contrast, and cause and effect. Lyrics are familiar to most of us, fitting a formula with which we are already comfortable. We can identify the message (theme) of the song and how the theme is developed.

Exemplification gives examples or stories to illustrate a theme. Crash Test Dummies' song "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" tells three short stories (also called anecdotes) to illustrate the theme that children are sensitive to social humiliation. "What It's Like" by Everlast also fits exemplification, giving three anecdotes on the theme that you can't judge others when you haven't lived their lives.

The qualities of a definition essay are demonstrated in Lyle Lovett's song "Bears" as well as in "Pretender" by Madonna.

For a good narrative, try Bruce Springsteen's "My Hometown" which has a clear chronological (time) sequence and tells the story of a small town's demise.

Folk singer Carrie Newcomer wrote the song "Silver" which is an excellent example of description.

Billy Joel's song "Only the Good Die Young" is blatantly persuasive. As with a persuasive essay, the song gives reasons for its audience (a young woman) to do ... er... something ... and even includes a section addressing the oppositions' arguments. Granted, the reasoning is top heavy on emotional appeal rather than rational appeal, but then statistics wouldn't make good music.

Post-it note planning

Maybe you've heard of planning your essay with the clustering technique? That's when you jot down your ideas on paper in little circles and then you draw lines between the ideas that are connected. Well, you can also use Post-it notes to do that same thing, except that post-its allow you to organize your thoughts better. Get a block of post-its and jot down one idea per post-it. When you've exhausted your ideas (or run out of post-its!), then spread them out over a table surface and start looking for connections. Peal off those that are related thoughts and reposition them next to each other. Once your ideas are organized into related clusters, you can organize them even more by placing them in a line top to bottom or left to right according to what you think should come first, second, third and so on. After a while, you'll have whole lines of thoughts that will serve as the basis for your paragraphs; this line would make a great introduction, this one would be good as a body paragraph, this one should be the next body paragraph...and so on. You may even have the perfect conclusion too. What's neat about using post-its to plan a paper is that you don't have to think "in order" in order to end up with well-organized ideas.

Freewriting is great. Now organize it.

Sometimes people write their thoughts down as a freewrite; in other words, they write whatever comes to mind that relates (or doesn't) to the topic at hand. This is a great way to get started and generate material to work with. Unfortunately, it is tempting to see all those words in type on a nice sheet of white paper and say "Hey! That looks good. I'm done then." ...Not. Writing must include organizing your thoughts and presenting them well, not willy-nilly. So, here's what I recommend to people who enjoy freewriting. Take that copy of your freewriting and reread it. Make one or two word notes in the margin that describe the gist of each section or sentence. You will start seeing some repeat topics scattered here and there. After you've noted where your brain went in your freewrite, then move the sentences which share topics together. Basically you are grouping like-items, as if you poured granola on the table and then separated the raisins from the oats from the M&Ms from the cashews. Got it? If you're good with computers, you can then use the copy and paste function to move your sentences around. If you like a more hands-on approach, you can use a scissors, cut out the sentences, tape them in the order you want, and then retype. When you get it all organized, then massage it a bit for flow to make it sound pretty.