compare and contrast essay

Valerie Torres
English 106
Professor Michael Buckhoff
4/12/15

Compare and Contrast Essay
There are a myriad of ways to construct and arrange any writing assignment: essay, research reports, proposal, etc. Beginning a paper is often a difficult stage to combat, however prior planning could diminish the struggle of not knowing where to start. Highly intellectual experienced writer and author of “Writing Drafts”, Richard Marius couldn’t agree more with this idea. By stating key points of pre-planning Marius and I share an abundance of similarities and very few dissimilarities when it comes to writing papers. His ideas of outlining, dramatic changes, and digressions further help analyze my writing style compared to that of my own, based on previous assignments I’ve done before.
First of all, Marius discusses viral points of outlining in paragraphs 1-5 of “Writing Drafts. His ideas of listing ideas, being optimistic of new ideas, and re-reading a first draft before going to bed, is very similar to a foundation I’ve set in an couple recent assignments. Moreover, in my Psychology 115 class I was assigned to write a free response essay on the various types of stress. Immediately, I began to brainstorm and list my main ideas that would correlate well to my central theme. Bringing forth ludicrous ideas, I remained optimistic knowing they might just work out in a particular way. Much like Marius, he acknowledged we use an outline like a guide that would lead us to a semi- thought out guide to begin the writing process. After writing an unpolished first draft with a thesis, and body paragraphs, I knew my essay needed major corrections once I read it several times before bed.
Continuing Marius’ central idea of writing preparedness, he stresses a good writer should be willing to make dramatic changes for a second draft. Sharing this perspective, I’ve had to alter my essay many times to better my essay. Marius describes the ways writers “cut’ and “paste” their first drafts in paragraph 7 and 8, and how that creates a growth of ideas to be implemented. Starting with an unpolished essay, I’ve done what Marius does; which is “cut” and “paste” ideas to different areas of my essay. My body paragraphs were overall more organized and my ideas were clear enough.
Although Marius points are very valid, I differ with his idea of omitting information, or cutting off digressions. In paragraph 10 he adds we may “digress a little. If you digress too often or too little, readers will not follow you unless your facts, your thoughts, and your style are so compelling, that they are somehow driven to follow you”. Although this is true, this is my mistake, here and there I go off on a tangent, but only to gain a little more attention from the reader. This seems like no problem, but when done often it can throw off a reader. When writing an essay about love, I’ve put on stories to draw in the reader, and make the essay more interesting, however, I might have gone off topic that by the end of the story readers were lost in my overall idea. Marius asserts to keep ideas intact, and although stories do lure a reader, we still have to be direct with our point of our story. According to the author, omitting information, and digressing to an extent is what should be done in draft two and three that will ultimately sharpen an essay.
Cleary, there are many similarities and only one dissimilarity in Marius’ form of writing in comparison to my own. Further acknowledging my mistake of too much digression will overall help me in the future when writing any assignment.