Comparison and Contrast - This or That?

This or That?

Writer: Zoe Hwang

Number of words: 691

"What should I have for breakfast, scramble eggs, toast, or pancakes?" "Should I have a latte or an espresso?" "Would I rather have the coffee hot or iced?"We are faced with numerous situations where we need to decide what to choose. When encountering so many different options, some of us may find ourselves pondering over and over again, wavering between; however, others may start thinking which decision would delight them the most: choosing scramble eggs over pancakes and toast because it's healthier; espresso rather than latte because in desperate need of caffeine; and a hot coffee instead of a iced coffee because it's cold outside. We may not know it - but at almost all time, twenty-four-seven, we are using the skill of comparison and contrast - the two most frequently used skills in writing an essay.

So what exactly is comparison? To briefly put, comparison is the skill to examine the similarities of two or more objects. By doing so, we may find a lot common features in things that seem completely different. For example, what does a school bus have in common with a bloated fish? A creative kid once wrote in his composition that his school bus - crammed with people on it just like a bloated fish with a huge stomach- swam through the narrow stream of streets, with people getting off the bus like bubbles coming out from the mouth of a fish. This is an excellent example of comparing two seemingly completely different - a vehicle and an animal - and create a vivid picture of the school bus driving through the regular route, picking up and dropping off people at stops.

As for contrast, it emphasizes the difference between things instead of the similarities. This can be very useful when a writer is trying to persuade his readers with a proposition. By pointing out the difference of his proposition from the other ordinary ideas, the readers can understand more of the advantages of the writer's ideas. For instance, what is so great about the new touch-screen phone newly released by the Apple Company that everyone wants to have one? The spokesman for Apple Company might highlight the new functions that are not yet invented by the other companies: a voice control system, a brand new version of Facetime, and terrific camera functions. Contrast can highlight the importance of the idea being introduced, thus making a wonderful skill to use when persuading people(readers).

There is another special kind of comparison that many great authors at their time manage to excel at - analogy. Analogy is different from the ordinary comparison because it tends to be used to compare things that are almost completely irrelevant. For example, the analogy between the heart and a pump; or the analogy of furs to North American aboriginals as