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Although at first it may appear that a cause and effect essay has the same structure and purpose as a compare and contrast essay, there are very distinct differences between the two. A cause and effect essay analyzes the progression of events or ideas in a linear fashion. There is a result and stated factors that lead to this result.

The basic purpose of a compare and contrast essay is to analyze the differences and similarities of two given ideas or things. It is the writer’s job to provide evidence showing the factors that each topic has in common as well as providing evidence to show how they differ from one another. The writer will often find these types of essays when trying to synthesis information on a broad scale, such as in a government class. Essentially, it is the job of the writer to show the reader the points of commonality between the topics and to point out the differences.

While in lower school levels you may have been able to draft up a written assignment the night before it was due you will find once you start writing at a university or college level that you will need to be a lot more organized in your writing of research papers. Organization can help you to focus your research process and help you to avoid any repetition of facts in your first written draft. Overall a paper will be more professional if you apply a bit of organization skills to the process. Naturally, your writing process consists of four stages, which are:

1. invention,
2. research,
3. writing, and
4. revising.

A compare and contrast paper usually uses two primary source documents, which are analyzed to prove areas where the two source documents have things in common and where the information in the two documents is in direct contrast with each other. Although compare and contrast essays are not limited to two primary source documents, including 3 or more source documents can make the paper confusing for the reader.

Critical thinking is described by The Critical Thinking Company as the identification and evaluation of evidence to guide decision making and that a critical thinker, according to Daniel Kurland, is a person who uses broad in-depth analysis of evidence to make decisions and communicate his/her beliefs clearly and accurately.

You have been given your assignment from your tutor and you are staring at a couple of pages worth of notes trying to make sense of what the tutor is asking you to do. You try looking for search terms and keywords that will help you to decide what type of paper you are expected to write, as well as indications on the subject matter, but it all just seems a bit confusing as paper requirements seem to be mixed up with tutor notes on what he/she expects from you in your research paper. You have already learned that you do need to understand what format the completed assignment should take to get a good grade, but now you are being asked to work this out in a real life situation.

Studying in college requires writing numerous papers. As a college student, one of the first things you are likely to learn is that writing for college is different from writing for high school. Surely you won’t have to give up all writing skills you acquired in school; as before, you will have to write clearly and correctly, have interesting thesis, construct focused paragraphs, write coherent conclusions, etc.

Still, many students enter college and keep using old high school writing strategies that are no longer relevant for college writing. For example, such techniques as five-paragraph scheme, are not flexible enough to provide universal and appropriate structure for college writing. Also, many of the old tricks, such as repeating yourself to meet ten-page requirement or using elevated tone for expression will let you down in your research paper.

So how is it possible to make swift and successful transition from high school to college in regards of writing?

You might know your study subjects inside out, but if you do not write your assignment papers in exactly the right format your tutor is looking for you are going to be disappointed in your paper grade. The single most effective way to improve your GPA is to turn in assignments that meet the paper requirements in every single way! This article is going to show you the differences between paper types followed by a template of a sample paper in each category that you can use to complete your own papers on any subject.