Your next essay is going to be a comparison and contrast essay

Your next essay is going to be a comparison and contrast essay. It will be based on Assignment #1 in the "Using Strategies and Sources" box at the end of  Chapter 11, section 11-5 in our textbook. It's the one about comparing two different career paths you may choose to pursue. Read it and pay attention to the types of questions it asks to help you understand what kinds of subtopics you need to cover. Now for the nitty-gritty:

• Your essay should be 750-1000 words long, (3-4 pages) double-spaced.
• Your header should be in the upper left-hand corner of the first page. Include your name, class name and section, my name, and date.
• Center your title. 
• Make sure your pages after the first page have your last name and page number in the upper right-hand corner. 

Think carefully about your thesis statement; it should give your reader an idea of which career path you settled upon and why. Use what you learned about good thesis statements and maps from Essay #1.

Think about which structure (point-by-point or block) will work best for you. There's no "wrong" choice; it's just how well you execute the structure. 

Use what you learned about exemplification and description from Essay #1 to develop your essay. This will help you meet the page requirement, as well as show what the two career paths are like and why you chose the one you did. 

If you use outside sources for information, look at  "MLA Style" (pp. 431-444) in Chapter 20, "Documenting Sources" to help you. We haven't started to learn officially about citations, works cited pages, and formats, but if you find information from other sources, you need to acknowledge where it comes from. 

The first draft of your Comparison and Contrast Essay is due by 11:30 on Thursday, October 8.  Save it as "yourlastnamecomparedraft" in Word, RTF or pdf and submit it to the Essay #2 Dropbox. 

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