Connections & Comparisons

 When the purpose of the assignment is to draw relationships among ideas, a typical organizational approach is to introduce and explain several separate ideas in early paragraphs and then draw relationships among these ideas in later paragraphs. 

 A common assignment involves showing the relationship between two authors (or texts) by comparing or contrasting them. An excellent organizational strategy in this case is to introduce a series of relevant issues and to compare the position of the authors on each issue, one issue at a time. 

Issue 1

      — Author/Text A

      — Author/Text B

Issue 2

      — Author/Text A

      — Author/Text B

A summary of the most important similarities and differences presented in these paragraphs would follow in the final portion of the essay. 

An alternate organizational strategy is to first introduce the positions of one author (or text) on all of the relevant issues, before proceeding to introduce the positions of the second. When using this strategy, it can be more difficult to keep the focus on comparing texts/authors.

Author/Text A

      — Issue 1

      — Issue 2

Author/Text B

      — Issue 1

      — Issue 2