← Unfamiliar written texts: close reading

Question Three: comparing, not covering (every paper)

Organised by idea, both texts in every paragraph, ending in a judgement.

What a comparing paragraph contains

• The point of comparison, in the question's own terms.
• Text A: the aspect, the evidence, the effect.
• Text B: the same aspect or a deliberately different one, evidence, effect.
• A connective doing real work — whereas, by contrast, similarly though.
• A judgement: which writer achieves more, and why.

Comparison framing	What it lets you say
Same idea, different aspect	Both explore change; A through structure, B through diction
Same aspect, different effect	Both use first person; A to confide, B to indict
One complicates the other	B unsettles the resolution A offers
Different purpose entirely	A memorialises, B argues — so the same image does opposite work

Any of these earns a comparison. What does not is "Text A does X. Text B does Y." with no relation stated between them.

✓

Choosing which aspect to compare on

Pick the aspect where the two texts differ most sharply, not the one that is easiest to describe in both. A pronoun shift that is present in one text and absent in the other is a sharper point of comparison than two texts that both simply "use imagery".

Practise just this