Appropriate Explanatory Strategies: Using Comparison-Contrast

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 Analyze 
Use the basic features.

Writers explaining concepts often use comparison and contrast. Research has shown that seeing how unfamiliar concepts are similar to or different from concepts we already know facilitates the learning of new concepts. Even when both concepts are unfamiliar, comparing foregrounds commonalities, while contrasting makes visible inconsistencies we might not otherwise notice.

Writers employ many strategies to signal comparisons and contrasts, including words that emphasize similarity or difference, and repeating sentence patterns to highlight the differences:

COMPARISONS

Same/also: words emphasizing similarity

The same phenomenon seems to also affect students taking the SAT. (Lehrer, par. 11)
CONTRASTS

Repeated sentence pattern highlights the contrast

“Early love is when you love the way the other person makes you feel.”...“Mature love is when you love the person as he or she is.” It is the difference between passionate and compassionate love.... “It’s Bon Jovi vs. Beethoven.” (Toufexis, par. 14)

ANALYZE & WRITE

Write a paragraph or two analyzing Cain’s strategies for showing contrast in her article, Shyness: Evolutionary Tactic?:

To learn more about comparing and contrasting, see Chapter 18.

  1. Find and highlight two or three of the sentence patterns Cain uses for cueing contrast in paragraphs 3–4, 9, 10, 13, 18, and 19.
  2. Analyze what is being contrasted and how each contrast works.
  3. Why do you think Cain uses contrast so often in this essay?

    Question