Dearly disconnected

Comparison and Contrast: Showing Similarities and Differences

WRITING QUICK START

the photograph on the opposite page showing someone using Wii to playing a game of golf. Think about how simulating the play of a sport

Wii is similar to and different from actually playing the sport. Make two lists-ways that playing the real sport and the Wii version are

and ways that the real and Wii versions are different. You might choose write about golf or select a different sport. In your lists, include details

the level of physical activity, types of skills required, interaction with players, the setting. and so on. Then write a paragraph comparing the

'xnpripncp<; of playing the sport using Wii and playing the actual sport.

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374 CHAPTER 16 COMPARISON AND CONTRAST

WRITING A COMPARISON OR CONTRAST ESSAY

Your paragraph about playing the actual and the Wii versions of a Sport is an example of comparison-and-contrast writing. You may have written about the similarities and differences in equipment required, physical exertion involved, and so forth. In addi­ tion, you probably organized your paragraph in one of two ways: (1) by writing about playing the Wii version and then writing about playing the actual sport (or vice versa) or (2) by discussing each point of similarity or difference with examples from Wii and the actual sport. This chapter will show you how to write effective comparison or contrast essa}'5 as well as how to incorporate comparison and contrast into essays using orher patterns of development.

What Are Comparison and Contrast?

Using comparison and contrast involves looking at both similarities and differences. AnalYLing similarities and differences is a useful decision-making skill that daily. You make comparisons when you shop for a pair of jeans, select a sandwich in the cafeteria, Or choose a television program to watch. You also compare alternatives when you make important decisions about which college to attend, which field to ma­ jor in, and which person to date.

You will find many occasions to use comparison and contrast in the writing you do in college and on the job (see the accompanying box for a few examples). In most essays of this type you will use one of two primary methods of organization, as the following two readings illustrate. The first essay, "Amusing Ourselves to Depth: Is The Onion Out Most Intelligent Newspaper?" by Greg Beato, uses a point­ by-point organization. The writer moves back and form between his two subjects (The Onion and traditional newspapers), comparing them on me basis of several key points or characteristics. The second essay, Ian Frazier's "Dearly Disconnected," uses a subject­ by-subject organ.iza.tion. Here the author describes the key points or characteristics of one subject (pay phones) before moving on to those of his other subject (cell phones).

GREG 375

POINT-BY-POINT ORGANIZATION

Amusing Ourselves to Depth: Is The Onion Our Most Intelligent Newspaper? Greg Beato

Greg Beato is a San Francisco-based writer who has written for such publications as Spin, Wired, Business 2.0, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He created the webzine Traff1c in 1995 and was a frequent contributor to the webzlne Suck. cam from 1996 to 2000. He also main­ tains a blog about media and culture, Soundbitten, which he started in 1997. This essay was published in Reason, a libertarian magazine, in 2007. As you read, notice how Beato uses comparison and contrast to make his case for the validity of "fake news••

In August 1988, college junior Tim Keck borrowed $7,000 from his mom, rented a Mac 1 Plus, and published a twelve-page newspaper. His ambition was hardly the stuff of future Journalism symposiums: He wanted to create a compelling way to deliver adver­ tising to his fellow students. Part of the first issue's front page was devoted to a story about a monster running amok at a local lake; the rest was reserved for beer and pizza coupons.

Almost twenty years later, The Onion stands as one of the newspaper industry's few 2 great success stories in the post-newspaper era. Currently, it prints 710,000 copies of each weekly edition, roughly 6,000 more than the Denver Post, the nation's ninth. largest daily. Its syndicated radio dispatches reach a weekly audience of one million, and it recently started producing video clips too. Roughly three thousand local adver­ tisers keep The Onion afloat, and the paper plans to add 170 employees to its staff of 130 this year.

Online it attracts more than two million readers a week. Type onion into Google, and 3 The Onion pops up first. Type the into Google. and The Onion pops up first. But type "best practices for newspapers' into Google, and The Onion is nowhere to be found. Maybe it should be. At a time when traditional newspapers are frantic to divest them. selves ortheir newsy, papery legacies, The Onion takes a surprisingly conservative approach to innovation. As much as it has used and benefited from the Web, it owes

ueh of its success to low-tech attributes readily available to any paper but ~onethe- in short supply: candor, irreverence, and a willingness to offend.

other newspapers desperately add gardening sections. ask readers to share 4 favorite bratwurst recipes, or throw their staffers to ravenous packs of bloggers for

question-and-answer sessions, The Onion has focused on reporting the news_ fake news, sure, but still the news. It doesn't ask readers to post their comments

end of stories, altow them to rate stories on a scale of one to five, or encourage It makes no effort to convince readers that it realty does understand their

and exists only to serve them. The Onion's journalists concentrate on writing and then getting them out there in a variety offormats. and this relatively old­

approach to newspapering has been tremendously successful.

any other newspapers that can boast a 60 percent increase in their print during the last three years? Yet as traditional newspapers fail to draw

376 CHAPTER 115 COMPARISON AND CONTRAST ----~"'~

readers, only industry mavericks like the New York Times' Jayson Blair and USA Today's Jack Kelley have looked to The Onion for inspiration.

One reason The Onion isn't taken more seriously is that it's actually fun to read. In 1985 the cultural critic Neil Postman published the influential Amusing Ourselves to Death, which warned of the fate that would befall us if public discourse were allowed to become substantially more entertaining than, say, a Neil Postman book. Today

newspapers are eager to entertain - in their Travel, Food, and Style sections, that is.

But even as scope creep has made the average big·city tree killer less portable than a

ten-year-old laptop, hard news invariably comes in a single flavor: Double Objectivity

Sludge.

Too many high priests of journalism still see humor as the enemy of seriousness: If the news goes down too easily, It can't be very good foryott. But do The ctnion and its more fact-based acolytes, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, monitor current events and the way the news media report on them any less rigorously than, say, the

Columbia Journalism Review or USA Today? During the last few years, multiple surveys by the Pew Research Center and the

Annenberg Public Policy Center have found that viewers of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are among America's most informed citizens. Now, it may be that Jon Stewart isn't making anyone smarter; perhaps America's most informed citizens

simply prefer comedy over the stentorian drivel the network anchormannequins dis­

pense. But at the very least, such surveys suggest that news sharpened with satire

doesn't cause the intellectual coronaries Postman predicted. Instead, it seems to

correlate with engagement.