Cause and Effect

What this handout is about

This handout will help you first to determine whether a particular assignment is asking for comparison/contrast and then to generate a list of similarities and differences, decide which similarities and differences to focus on, and organize your paper so that it will be clear and effective. It will also explain how you can (and why you should) develop a thesis that goes beyond "Thing A and Thing B are similar in many ways but different in others."

Introduction

In your career as a student, you'll encounter many different kinds of writing assignments, each with its own requirements. One of the most common is the comparison/contrast essay, in which you focus on the ways in which certain things or ideas—usually two of them—are similar to (this is the comparison) and/or different from (this is the contrast) one another. By assigning such essays, your instructors are encouraging you to make connections between texts or ideas, engage in critical thinking, and go beyond mere description or summary to generate interesting analysis: when you reflect on similarities and differences, you gain a deeper understanding of the items you are comparing, their relationship to each other, and what is most important about them.

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Recognizing comparison/contrast in assignments

Some assignments use words—like compare, contrast, similarities, and differences—that make it easy for you to see that they are asking you to compare and/or contrast. Here are a few hypothetical examples:

• Compare and contrast Frye's and Bartky's accounts of oppression.
• Compare WWI to WWII, identifying similarities in the causes, development, and outcomes of the wars.
• Contrast Wordsworth and Coleridge; what are the major differences in their poetry?

Notice that some topics ask only for comparison, others only for contrast, and others for both.

But it's not always so easy to tell whether an assignment is asking you to include comparison/contrast. And in some cases, comparison/contrast is only part of the essay—you begin by comparing and/or contrasting two or more things and then use what you've learned to construct an argument or evaluation. Consider these examples, noticing the language that is used to ask for the comparison/contrast and whether the comparison/contrast is only one part of a larger assignment:

• Choose a particular idea or theme, such as romantic love, death, or nature, and consider how it is treated in two Romantic poems.
• How do the different authors we have studied so far define and describe oppression?
• Compare Frye's and Bartky's accounts of oppression. What does each imply about women's collusion in their own oppression? Which is more accurate?
• In the texts we've studied, soldiers who served in different wars offer differing accounts of their experiences and feelings both during and after the fighting. What commonalities are there in these accounts? What factors do you think are responsible for their differences?

You may want to check out our handout on understanding assignments for additional tips.

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Using comparison/contrast for all kinds of writing projects

Sometimes you may want to use comparison/contrast techniques in your own pre-writing work to get ideas that you can later use for an argument, even if comparison/contrast isn't an official requirement for the paper you're writing. For example, if you wanted to argue that Frye's account of oppression is better than both de Beauvoir's and Bartky's, comparing and contrasting the main arguments of those three authors might help you construct your evaluation—even though the topic may not have asked for comparison/contrast and the lists of similarities and differences you generate may not appear anywhere in the final draft of your paper.

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Discovering similarities and differences

Making a Venn diagram or a chart can help you quickly and efficiently compare and contrast two or more things or ideas. To make a Venn diagram, simply draw some overlapping circles, one circle for each item you're considering. In the central area where they overlap, list the traits the two items have in common. Assign each one of the areas that doesn't overlap; in those areas, you can list the traits that make the things different. Here's a very simple example, using two pizza places:

Contrast Paragraphs As mentioned above, a contrast paragraph discusses the differences between (at least) two things. You can organize contrast paragraphs in much the same way that you can organize comparison paragraphs. That is, you can organize them either according to points of similarity or according to subtopic. Here is an example of such a paragraph organized by subtopic. Notice the contrastive expressions in bold letters:

http://www.e-aprender-ingles.com/index2.php?go=gramatica&letra=t

Podemos agrupar las conjunciones en COORDINATIVAS y SUBORDINATIVAS, entendiendo por coordinativas aquéllas que unen palabras u oraciones de la misma categoría y subordinativas, las que unen una oración principal y una subordinada.

COORDINATIVAS

http://www.ompersonal.com.ar/omgrammar/conjunciones.htm

El inglés tiene dos tipos de sustantivos verbales, el infinitivo (con o sin "to") y el gerundio (la terminación -ing). La mayoría de los verbos que toman un sustantivo verbal pueden estar seguidos de uno u otro (un gerundio o un infinitivo, pero no ambos). Sin embargo, existen determinados verbos a los que puede seguirle indistintamente un gerundio o un infinitivo. A ellos nos referiremos aquí...

Los verbos modales en Inglés son:
can, could, may, might, will, would, should and must .

Características de los verbos modales

• Se usan antes de los infinitivos de otros verbos y muestran el grado de seguridad, obligación, etc. de las acciones que se llevan a cabo.
• No llevan 's' en la 3º persona del singular.
  Ej. She must help me ( Ella debe de ayudarme )
• después del verbo modal usamos el infinitivo sin el 'to'.
  Ej. You must go to the doctor (Debes ir al médico )
• Se usan para describir el grado de certeza: seguro, probable, posible o imposible y para expresar la obligación y la libertad de acción.

Grados de Certeza:

• Certeza total: must, mustn't, will, won't, can, can't.
• Probabilidad, posibilidad: Should, shouldn't, may, may not
• Débil probabilidad o posibilidad: might, might not, could, couldn't
• Condicionalidad o posibilidad: Would, wouldn't, could, couldn't.

Grados de obligación:

• Obligación fuerte: must
• Prohibición: must not, can't
• Obligación débil: should, might, may
• Voluntad, insistencia y ofrecimientos: will, would
• Permiso: can, may, might
• Habilidad: can