Help Me Find Some Good Topics for a Compare and Contrast Essay

Explaining Comparison/Contrast Essays

A comparison or contrast essay both evoke an essay which is meaningful by drawing on similarities and differences. Comparison essays focus on both similarities or differences, while contrast objects which are different — unsimilar.

Each technique, comparison or contrast, can help yield an excellent essay, if you choose your topic matter wisely.

If you think about it, we compare and contrast our experiences all the time—what we thought an experience would be like versus what it actually is is an experience human beings go throufh all the time, because we are always making presumptions about what something will be like before we actually go through the experience, only to find out our perceptions were wrong.

We also make comparisons and contrasts all the time when making lifestyle decisions. Even deciding to begin running every day is a contrast to living a life without exercise right? And eating a new diet full of raw, healthy, organic foods will be drastically different than a life on canned foods, yes? So diet and lifestyle changes can be good compare and contrast essay topics that are easier to write about than some others.

Below is a list of excellent topics for a comparison and contrast essay.

Good Topics for Comparison and Contrast Essays

1. What I thought an experience would be like contrasted to what it actually was.
2. Trying hard versus not trying hard.
3. Eating whole foods as opposed to processed ones
4. A non-gluten diet compared to a gluten filled diet
5. The benefits of eating a Paleo diet versus a non-Paleo diet.
6. Being a loner versus gaining popularity
7. The 21st century as opposed to the 1990s.
8. The Vietnam War compared to the Korean Conflict.
9. Playing video games or real games with others.
10. Taking college seriously versus just being there to socialize.
11. Contrast the feeling of summer to the feeling of winter
12. Compare sunrises to sunsets.
13. Comparing having a pet dog to having pet cat
14. Comparing yourself as a teen to yourself as a child
15. Comparing yourself as an adult to yourself as a teenager.
16. Compare watercolor painting to oil painting.
17. Compare Hobbes’ philosophies to Locke’s philosophies
18. Compare the Romantic Period to the Victorian Period
19. Compare and contrast emailing someone to actually writing them a letter.
20. Compare primates to human beings