A creative mind is a beautiful one. Comparison and contrast essay topics always used to be my favourite assignment because it gave me such freedom to brainstorm myself, and jot down all the innovative ideas which came to my mind. Most of the students love to write comparison and contrast essay topics, due to humongous options available. There are no restrictions, or boundaries, so one can easily select a topic that they admire or believe in. It is quite an interesting assignment but do not consider it to be easy.
What is the key to write it?
The most critical point of writing comparison and contrast essays is to choose a good topic. Make sure that the two topics have enough similarities as well as differences otherwise your essay won’t be interesting. Say, for example you can write about rock music and classical music.
But, obviously you can’t write a comparison and contrast essay on music and dogs because they are not relevant. So, ensure that the comparison and contrast essay topics which you choose must be related and contrasting at the same time!
What are the sources?
First and foremost remember this that you have to put a lot of dedication, time, and patience to do these comparative essays. Before writing some detailed research has to be done on the comparison and contrast essay topics, such that a scholar can gather enough information and then write it.
There are many sources from where students can gather information.
- Textbooks
- Novels
- Newspapers
- Official reports
- Internet surfing
- Documentaries
- Academic journals
- Scientific magazines
- Research papers
- Movies
Types of comparison and contrast essay topics
These topics can be subdivided into five major categories from where students can opt for a specific topic. The categories are:
- Events:
Events can be anything starting from historical wars to political events. You have to focus on the specific event that you want to write on. Find out all the comparison areas and then contrast the differences.
- Situations:
It could be two incidents from your own life, or two case studies of any renowned personality. Situations could be anything where a person has to do or face something drastic which can be compared and differentiated as well.
- Renowned people or personalities:
A student can select a legend such as Adolph Hitler, and compare him with someone like Joseph Stalin.
- Fictional characters:
Scholars can also compare fictional characters from various books or novels that they love and have admired since childhood.
- Places:
There could me many places which could be used as comparison and contrast essay topics, such as historical places, and others.
Follow these steps
To write the interesting comparison and contrast essay topics, the students need to follow some structured steps. Have a glance at those steps:
- Introduction:
The background should be provided in the first part of the essay. Make sure that your introduction gets your audience hooked with the essay. Start with a broad introduction and then shape it into a streamlined outline focussing on your specific comparison and contrast essay topics. Moreover, do not forget to point to the main argument of your entire essay. Give a brief idea to the reader about the description that you will mention later.
- Developing your comparative points:
It is easy to develop the comparative points because you probably are writing about someone or something which you have a good idea about. Just jot down the points quickly and then describe each of the points with examples or incidents.
- Refute points for contrast:
Now that you are done with the comparison part of the essay, it is time to refute the contrast points. Here you might have to spend some time on detailed research. I always preferred to read a lot of information and then specifically eliminate the extras and that really helped me to come up with unique ideas for my contrast part.
- Conclusion:
This is one of the most important parts of the comparison and contrast essays. The reader often might want to jump to the conclusion to know what the final outcome is. We often do that, so my strategy used to be to make the conclusion very enticing and finally break the suspense just like a novel. Well, you don’t have to do the same thing necessarily but make sure to focus well on the conclusion.
- Focus on formatting and remember to put in-text citations:
Try to put direct and indirect quotes, because that would make your essay look very interesting.
A glance at some interesting comparison and contrast essay topics
Historical essays
- Comparative study of Lincoln’s and Washington’s’ principles
- Henry VIII vs. King Louis XIV
- Fascism and Nazism: Similarity and contrast!
- Anthropology vs. Religious Studies: How are they related?
- American Government vs. Soviet Government: How different are they?
- American Revolution Vs. French revolution
- Conditions of North and South prior to the occurrence of the Civil War in the US
- Renaissance vs. Baroque Epoch
- World War I and World War II: Unique events.
- Compare and contrast studies of Ancient Rome and Greece.
Literature essays
- Shakespeare’s Othello and Hamlet
- Comedy shows and Dramatic shows
- Lord of the Rings Vs. Harry Potter
- Greek Mythology and Roman Mythology at a glance.
- Literature of the past and the future.
Scientific essays
- Inventions of Thomas Jefferson, or Da Vinci! The significance of both
- Environmental difference between Earth and Mars.
- The consequences of Earthquake and Tsunami
- First mission to moon and the second visit. How different was? Were there any similarities?
There is many such interesting comparison and contrast essay topics which students can choose easily to write an A grade essay! So, friends don’t worry if you have to submit an essay within a few days. I have given you the best ideas which I have been following and the excellent tips which I give to my siblings as well.
Try to focus on the topics, do some detailed research, and have some patience. That is all, and you are good to go!