ENG 095 Compare and Contrast
YOUR ASSIGNMENT
In today's workshop you'll learn to find two articles to compare and contrast. When you compare, you will find things in the articles that are the same. When you contrast you will find things that are different. In the paper you write you will tell your reader these things in an organized way so that he or she will understand.There are all sorts of things you can compare and contrast. Think about these questions:
- What are the articles about?
- What sort of person wrote them?
- Why were they written?
- When were they written?
- Where is the information coming from?
Also remember that it may be best to choose two articles that have a combination of differences and similarities. If the articles are almost entirely different or entirely the same, your paper will lack interest.
FINDING NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
For your presentation, you need articles from books, newspapers, or magazines. We’re hoping you’ve already been to the library and used our library catalog to find books; if you'd like a refresher, see this library web page.
The idea is not to use all the links we give you, but to think about the type of information you want to find and pick the sources that seem to fit the best. For example, if you want to find international news, it's probably best not to start with the Massachussetts Newspapers database. Remember to think about how the articles you select relate to your topic.
Article sources: electronic databases
There are a number of other electronic databases that are available for free to Bunker Hill Community College students and employees. As long as you have a Bunker Hill library card, you can access these databases from on-campus or off-campus; you just have to remember to choose the right link.
Go to: http://www.noblenet.org/bhcc/databases.htm Recommended databases: try starting your search with
- eLibrary -- a source that combines access to articles in a wide range of sources, including newspapers, magazines, maps, and pictures.
- FACTS.com -- a great source for current events, contains information, including statistics, about key events, people, and issues of the last 20 years. See particularly the Issues and Controversies section.
Article sources: the World Wide Web
You can start with local newspapers:
Using the World Wide Web to find reliable information
Anyone can put in information on the Internet. Unfortunately, not all of this information is reliable. It is very important to make sure that your sources are credible. It is your responsiblility to critically analyze the information you find. Check out a great resource for Evaluating Websites from the Cornell University Library. Wesleyan University has also put together a mini-tutorial on evaluating Web sites, available on the Wesleyan library Web site at Evaluating what you Find.Four criteria to keep in mind while considering websites are:
- Accuracy- Are there spelling errors or incorrect data? Is the information too generalized?
- Authority- Who is the author? What are their credentials? Can they be contacted?
- Currency- When was the material written? Are the links live? Has the site been updated?
- Objectivity- Is more than one view presented? What is the goal of this site?
And finally, don't forget to cite what you find
It should be easy for your reader to recognize the difference between your words and the words you've quoted from other sources as support for your statements.
Use the following website: http://www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/works_cited
Follow the MLA format for citing from your source to clearly state where your quotes came from and make it easy for your reader to look up the original document.
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Last reviewed April 12, 2006