How do I write a comparative essay?

The key to a comparative essay is to be consistent with your comparisons throughout. As with all essays, your theme and argument should be present from your introduction and run through to your conclusion. This ensures that you are constantly answering, and not deviating from the question. In terms of a comparative essay, it helps to work out a realistic number of comparisons that you need to make in relation to the length of your essay and between the two texts start to look at similarities and differences- find as many as you can and select the strongest and most evidence based comparisons, so you aren't left with no analysis points. They could be similarities and differences in lexical choices, devices used, effect created, general themes and moods of each text and many others. Once you have picked out a feature, found either similarities or differences in each text and planned out your essay, you are ready to begin communicating these comparisons to the examiner. Using an A-B A-B style (text A, then compare to text B) can be a very useful method for ensuring that every main point you have made is in comparison to the other text.Don't wait until the end of your first paragraph to link a comparison, make it clear from the start of A that it compares/contrasts to B to make your line of argument strong and convincing.