Essay

Top 20 Compare And Contrast Essay Topics

Essay writing is a common practice in high school and college. English professors and teachers often assign different kinds of essay writing tasks. Compare and contrast article is one such essay writing assignment in both high school and college.

Compare and contrast essay is a type of essay that analyze the differences, similarities, and relationship between two ideas or subjects by comparing and contrasting them against each other.

Compare and contrast article is evidence-based and require an objective approach to the topics or ideas in question.

The purpose of assigning compare and contrast essay writing tasks is to develop the analytical skill of the student (or writer), as well as test the student (or writer) understanding of the subject.

Compare and contrast essays also strengthen the student (or writer) understanding of the issue, and like any other essay, it also improves the writing skills of the student (or writer).

Many students (or writers) find it challenging to write a compare and contrast essay because they find it challenging to choose a suitable topic for their dissertation. Frequently, most students come across compare and contrast issues during their exams as examination questions.

Some examples include:

Compare and contrast the plant cell and animal cell. Compare and contrast the histology and cytology.

You would notice that the examples above all began with the prefix: “Compare and contrast.” However, many compare and contrast essay topics don’t start with the name: “Compare and contrast.”

Examples of these include:

Fascism and Nazism: Are they different or the same?
Do Republicans and Democrats have anything in common?

Like any other essay, the success of your compare and contrast essay writing depends on many factors. However, the first determinant is the topic you choose to write. Finding and selecting a suitable topic for your compare and contrast essay writing isn’t impractical.

This article will show you how to generate as many issues as you intend to have for your compare and contrast essay. We will also show you the top 20 compare and contrast essay topics you can choose from to write your essay. Let’s get started!

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How to Find and Choose Compare and Contrast Essay Topics

Remember our earlier definition of a compare and contrast essay: “it has to analyze the differences, similarities, and relationship between two ideas or subjects by comparing and contrasting them against each other.”

There are three keywords in this definition that will help you choose a suitable topic for your essay:

1. Consider Two Ideas or Subjects

Your compare and contrast essay topic must clearly show two different ideas or subjects that belong to one category.

For example, “Compare and Contrast the plant cell and animal cell.” This example shows two distinct questions: plant cell and animal cell. However, they all fall under one category: cells of living things.

Let’s see another example: “Do Republicans and Democrats have anything in common?” This example shows two distinct people: Republicans and Democrats. However, they all fall under one category: political parties.

It is important to note that these two ideas or subjects can be persons, animals, places, events, objects, etc. However, they should fall under the same area of interest or category of thought.

2. Outline the Differences and Similarities between These Two Ideas or Subjects

An outline is the first way to test the suitability of your preferred ideas or subjects. You can do this by drawing a two-column table—differences on one side, and similarities on the other side.

Do some research work and pick out as many differences and similarities as you can find on the subjects and outline them. You must write the differences and similarities between these subjects in their order of significance. Organizing the points will help you write a better, more organized, and more compelling essay.

3. Find the Relationship Between These Two Ideas or Subjects

Relationship finding is one of the main aims of a compare and contrast essay—to draw your audience’s attention to the relationship between the two ideas or subjects you have chosen.

Some persons confuse this with the similarities between the plans or topics. However, relationship means a different thing here. Links in this context refers to the role of these ideas or subjects in their family-categories.

For example, the relationship between plant cell and animal cell isn’t that both of them have a cell membrane. Instead, it is that both plant cell and animal cells are the smallest functional units of the plants and animals, respectively.

Similarities often centre on features, while relationship focuses on function.

Conclusion

Your essay topic is your essay direction, content, and lifeline. Our selection of the top 20 questions will get you started. You choose one of these topics and start doing your essay writing task. You’ve also learned how to generate more unusual problems. So, when you exhaust these, you can ride along.

Are you writing a comparative essay? Or about to start one, tell us all about it in the comment section below.

Amit Kumar

FreeEducator.com blog is managed by Amit Kumar. He and his team come from the Oxford, Stanford and Harvard. At FreeEducator, we strive to create the best admission platform so that international students can go to the best universities - regardless of financial circumstances. By applying with us, international students get unlimited support and unbiased advice to secure the best college offers overseas.