COMPARISON / CONTRAST: WRITER RESPONSE

1. Does your introduction
• Clearly identify your subjects
• Explain the basis of your comparison
• State your purpose and the overall limits of your particular study?
2. Does you thesis include the boundaries of your discussion?
3. Have you limited your discussion to three or four basic categories?
4. Is your paper organized in one of the following ways? (1) Point by point, (B) Alternating, (C) A combination of the two above, (D) A separate discussion of similarities and differences between the two

5.  Does your conclusion summarize your main points and state the deductions you made form those points?

COMPARISON / CONTRAST: READER RESONSE

1. What assumptions can you make from the essay’s title?

2. Can you guess what the general mood of the essay is?

3. What is the essay’s purpose?

4. Who is the essay’s intended audience?

5. What does the introduction tell you about the essay?

6. What is the author’s point of view toward the subject?

7. Look at the thesis. Does it

· Clearly identify the subjects?

· Explain the basis of the comparison / contrast?

· State the writer’s purpose and the overall limits of the study

· Is it lively and interesting?

· How might it be improved?

·

8. How is the essay organized?

• (Point by point?
• Subject by subject?
• A combination?
• Separated discussion of likenesses and differences?)

9. Look at the topic sentence of each paragraph. Does each one clearly present a point introduced in the thesis? Mark these with the letters FTS (faulty topic sentence).

10. Is the writer’s method of organization effective for advancing the essay’s thesis?

11. Is the essay fully developed with smoothly flowing transitions? List at least five.

12. Has the writer held your interest with lively verbs and descriptive language?

13. Has the writer discussed the same qualities of each subject equally?

14. Has the writer dealt with all aspects of the comparison that are relevant to the purpose?