Patterns Plus

Comparison and contrast, like classification and division, is a useful mode of development for writing on the academic subjects you will study in college courses. You will encounter it in textbooks and, again, if you become comfortable with this mode, it will come in handy in your writing for other courses. Be alert, for example, to essay assignments and exam questions that begin "Compare and contrast. . . ."

In the readings that follow, you will find the alternating, block, and mixed methods of organizing compari- son-and-contrast development. You will also see the variety of ideas that writers express through comparison and contrast. The questions and assignments at the ends of the readings will help you understand the principles underlying this mode of development, so that you can apply them in your own writing.

Chapter 6 / Comparison and Contrast

Children of Two Nations

Brenda David

Brenda David spent several years in Milan, Italy, working at a school for American and

Italian children. At the school she observed some interesting differences among the children, which she attributes to the differing priorities and values of Americans and Italians.

Since her return to the United States, Brenda David has been studying piano, flying airplanes, and teaching English as a second language.

Words to Know

inquisitive curious passive quiet, inactive

priority order of importance

.11 young children, whatever their culture, are alike in their charm and innocence—in being a clean slate on which the wonders and ways of the world are yet to be written. But during the three years I worked in a school in Milan, I learned that American and Italian children are different in several ways. First, young American children tend to be active, enthusiastic, and inquisitive. Italian children, on the other hand, tend to be passive, quiet, and not particularly inquisitive. They usually depend on their parents to tell them what to do. Second, American children show their independence while their Italian counterparts are still looking to their parents and grandparents to tell them what to do or not do. Third, and most important to those who question the influence of environment on a child, the American children generally surpass their Italian schoolmates in math, mechanical, and scientific abilities. But American children are overshadowed by their Italian counterparts in their languages, literature, art, and music courses. Perhaps the differences, which those of us at the school confirmed in an informal study, were to be expected. After all, what priority do Americans give to the technological skills? And what value do Italians—with the literature of poets and authors like Boccaccio, the works of Michelangelo, and the music of the world-famous La Scala opera at Milan— place on the cultural arts?

Questions About the Reading

1.What does the writer mean when she says all young children are a "clean slate"?

2.Why, according to the writer, do American children score higher in technical subjects? Why do Italian children score higher in cultural subjects?

3.What does the writer imply about the influence of environment on a child?

Questions About the Writer's Strategies

1.What is the main idea of the paragraph?

2.Is the writer's mode of development comparison, contrast, or both?

3.What organizational method does the writer use? Draw a diagram of the organization. (See pages 190-191.)

4.The writer uses some transitional words to help you identify the points she makes in the paragraph. Identify these expressions.

Writing Assignments

1.Write a paragraph comparing and contrasting high school students and college students. Use point-by-point organization.

2.Write a paragraph comparing and contrasting people from two different neighborhoods near your home. Use the block method of organization.

3.Write a paragraph comparing and contrasting parents who are permissive and parents who are strict.

Two Views of Time

Robert Grudin

Is time a single entity, always having the same meaning? Hardly, says Robert Grudin in this passage. Time, he indicates, can be viewed in sharply contrasting ways, suggestingquite different realities.

Word to Know

cosmos the universe

Imagine that you spent your whole life at a single house. Each day at the same hour you entered an artificially-lit room, undressed and took up the same position in front of a motion picture camera. It photographed one frame of you per day every day of your life. On your seventy-second birthday, the reel of film was shown. You saw yourself growing and aging over seventy-two years in less than half an hour (27.4 minutes at sixteen frames per second). Images of this sort, though terrifying, are helpful in suggesting unfamiliar but useful perspectives of time. They may, for example, symbolize the telescoped, almost momentary character of the past as seen through the eyes of an anxious or disaffected individual. Or they may suggest the remarkable brevity of our lives in the cosmic scale of time. If the estimated age of the cosmos were shortened to seventy-two years, a human life would take about ten seconds.

But look at time the other way. Each day is a minor eternity of/over 86,000 seconds. During each second, the number of distinct molecular functions going on within the human body is comparable to the number of seconds in the estimated age of the cosmos. A few seconds are long enough for a revolutionary idea, a startling communication, a baby's conception, a wounding insult, a sudden death. Depending on how we think of them, our lives can be infinitely long or infinitely short.

Questions About the Reading

1.Which view of time do you prefer? Why?

2.What does the writer imply is useful about each view of time?

3.How old is the cosmos? (Don't grab your calculator. Just give a rough estimate in your own words.)

Questions About the Writer's Strategies

1.What method did the writer use to organize the passage?

2.What primary mode of development does the writer use for his contrast? Does he use more than one?

3.What is the main idea of this contrast? Where is the thesis statement?

Writing Assignments

1.Write a paragraph contrasting the amount of time it takes to do two different things; for example, eating a pizza versus brushing your teeth, writing a paragraph versus reading a paragraph, jogging a mile in the rain versus walking home from class on a pleasant day. Try to give a sense of how time feels in each situation.

2.In a paragraph, compare and contrast your views of time now with those you remember having as a child. Think, for instance, about the value you attach to time now versus the value you attached then, or about how quickly time seems to pass now versus then.

The Natural Superiority of Women

Ashley Montagu

Whodoyouthinkaresuperior:menorwomen?Mythhasitthatmenare,butanthropologistAshleyMontagudisagrees.Inthefollowingparagraph,takenfromhiscontroversial bookTheNaturalSuperiorityofWomen,Montaguprovidesevidencethatwomenare superiortomen.

Words to Know

chestnut an old story or joke

constitutional concerned with the body's health and strength

rigors harshness

Y-chromosome in genetics, the part of a cell responsible for transmitting male characteristics

JL hysically and psychically women are by far the superior of men. The old chestnut about women being more emotional than men has been forever destroyed by the facts of two great wars. Women under blockade, heavy bombardment, concentration camp confinement, and similar rigors withstand them vastly more successfully than men. The psychiatric casualties of civilian populations under such conditions are mostly masculine, and there are far more men in our mental hospitals than there are women. The steady hand at the helm is the hand that has had the practice at rocking the cradle. Because of their greater size and weight, men are physically more powerful than women— which is not the same thing as saying that they are stronger. A man of the same size and weight as a woman of comparable background and occupational status would probably not be any more powerful than a woman. As far as constitutional strength is concerned, women are stronger than men. Many diseases from which men suffer can be shown to be largely influenced by their relation to the male Y-chromo- some. More males die than females. Deaths from almost all causes are more frequent in males of all ages. Though women are more frequently ill than men, they recover from illnesses more easily and more frequently than men.

TheNatural Superiority of Women / Ashley Montagu

199

Questions About the Reading

1. What does the writer mean by the "steady hand at the helm"? What connections is the writer suggesting between the hand at the helm and the hand that rocks the cradle?

2.What influences many of the diseases from which men suffer?

3.Why do you think the writer states that men are not stronger than women, even though they are physically more powerful?

Questions About the Writer's Strategies

1. Does the writer use comparison, contrast, or a combination of the two to develop his paragraph?

2.What is the topic of this paragraph? Where is the topic sentence located?

3.Does the writer use the point-by-point method or the block method to organize his paragraph?

Writing Assignments

1. Think of one male friend and one female friend. Which do you think is stronger? Why? Using comparison and/or contrast as your mode of development, explain your answer in a paragraph.

2. Is there someone with whom you are often compared, such as a sister, a brother, or a friend? Write a paragraph in which you compare yourself with this person. Are the similarities superficial, or are you really alike? How are you different? Is there a good reason for you to be compared?

3. In a paragraph, compare and contrast the cafeteria at your school with a restaurant at which you like to eat. Use examples to show similarities and differences.

Civilization and Education

fames Baldwin

James Baldwin, who died in 1988, is one of America's most noted black writers. Here he implies a disturbing contrast between separate meanings of two important concepts.

Words to Know

exacts demands; extorts

obtain prevail

Every human being born begins to be civilized the moment he or she is born. Since we all arrive here absolutely helpless, with no way of getting a decent meal or of moving from one place to another without human help (and human help exacts a human price), there is no way around that. But this is civilization with a small c. Civilization with a large C is something else again. So is education with a small e different from Education with a large E. In the lowercase, education refers to the relations that actually obtain among human beings. In the uppercase, it refers to po.wer. Or, to put it another way, my father, mother, brothers, sisters, lovers, friends, sons, daughters civilize me in quite another way than the state intends. And the education I can receive from an afternoon with Picasso, or from taking one of my nieces or nephews to the movies, is not at all what the state has in mind when it speaks of Education.

Questions About the Reading

1.What does the writer mean by civilized?

2.In your own words, describe the differences between the uppercase terms and the lowercase terms the writer is contrasting.

3.Speculate on what the writer is implying about the state.

Questions About the Writer's Strategies

1.What is the main idea of the paragraph? Is there a topic sentence?

2.What examples does the writer use to help clarify his contrast?

3.Is this paragraph written subjectively or objectively? Support your answer.

Writing Assignments

1. Write a paragraph or essay classifying teachers according to their attitudes toward students (or, if you like, students according to their attitudes toward teachers).

2.In a paragraph, describe the categories of power or advantage people derive from education. As one of your categories, use the type of power you think Baldwin refers to.

Two Towns in Delaware

Charles Kuralt

Two things—in this case, towns—started out the same way. at the same time. Over the years they developed vast differences. What arc the differences? How did they come about?

What do they mean in our lives? In this look at Wilmington and New Castle, Delaware,

Charles Kuralt tries to answer these questions.

Poor New Castle.

Lucky Wilmington.

Questions About the Reading

1.Were New Castle and Wilmington founded before or after the American Revolution? How do you know?

2.In paragraph 2, in the next to last sentence, what does the writer mean by "New Castle slumbered"?

3.How old, approximately, are the houses in New Castle?

4.What does the writer mean by an "important" city or town?

5.What does the writer think of Wilmington? What does he think of New Castle?

Questions About the Writer's Strategies

1.Identify the metaphors in paragraph 3.

2.Is the writer's mode of development comparison, contrast, or mixed? Support your answer.

3.What method of organization does Kuralt use in comparing the two cities? Does he follow one method exclusively? (See pages 190-191.)

4.The thesis statement is not presented in the first paragraph of this essay. Where is it presented? What is the thesis statement? Rewrite it in your own words. Is the same idea expressed anywhere else in the essay? If so, wliere?

5.The writer concludes the essay by saying "Poor New Castle. Lucky Wilmington." What tone is the writer using?

Writing Assignments

1.Compare the city or town in which you live with another city or town nearby. How does each place look? What educational and social outlets does it provide? What services does it provide? In which town or city would you prefer to live?

2.Think of a town or neighborhood where you lived when you were growing up. Write an essay comparing and contrasting what that place was like then with what it is like now. How has it changed? How has it stayed the same?

204

Chapter 6 / Comparison and Contrast

Nursing Practices—England and America

Mary Madden

Mary Madden contrasts the way the important profession of nursing is practiced in England and in the United States. Her approach is a generous one. Until the last paragraph, she concentrates on the positive features of a nurse's life and work in each country. She leaves the drawbacks of working in each country unstated—though she implies them clearly.

Words to Know

restrictions limitations

vocation a regular occupation or profession

J. left my native Ireland after I had completed a high school educa- 1 tion. I studied to become a nurse and midwife in England, and I eventually came to the United States of America. Because I have worked five years in hospitals in England and the U.S.A., my friends frequently ask about differences, as I see them, in the practice of nursing on both sides of the Atlantic.

The nurse decides when the patient is allowed out of bed or what 4 type of bath he may have. I do not recall ever seeing an order on a physician's chart such as "OOR in 24 hours" or "may take a shower." The nurse judges when a wound is healed and when sutures may be removed. She is always consulted about the patient's requirements and his progress. And because of the structure of most hospitals in England, the nurse is in view of the patient constantly. Whenever he needs attention, the nurse is there in the ward, and she may observe him, too, unobtrusively.

of medicine.

Here in the United States the nurse is regarded as an individual per10 son and her personal life outside the hospital is given consideration. She develops interests in arts, sport or a creative hobby; she is encouraged to further her education. Time and means are available to her to expand her horizons and to enrich her personality. Many nurses combine marriage and a career very ably in this country, but not in England or Ireland. All this tends to involve her more with people other

than the sick. She is an interesting, informed, and happy person and at the bedside she can show understanding and perception.

In Britain, like most nurses, I lived in a nurses' home on the hospital grounds and was thus isolated in a special hospital community. Theoretically I worked eight hours each day that I was on duty. But these hours were so arranged that one went to work twice in one day. One might work four hours in the morning, have a iew hours free, and then o-o back to the ward for the evening. This schedule demands most of one's waking hours, and so mingling in the larger community outside the hospital was quite limited. The nurse was expected to find full satisfaction in her vocation, and thoughts of increases in salary were considered unworthy. Now, such attitudes are beginning to change and the winds of unrest are blowing through nursing in England, ruffling many a well-placed cap.

Questions About the Reading

1. What is the relationship between nurse and patient in the United States? How does this relationship differ from that found in Great Britain?

2.Does the writer suggest that nurses in the United States are not respected by doctors? Cite statements in the essay to support your answer.

3.How does Great Britain's "socialized" health-care system affect nursing practice?

4.Based on what the essay says about the nursing profession in the two countries, in which do you think patients would receive better care? Why do you feel this way?

Questions About the Writer's Strategies

1.Does the writer express opinions on whether it is better to work as a nurse in the United States or in England? Are the writer's opinions directly stated or implied?

2.Is the essay as a whole organized according to the point-by-point method, the block method, or the mixed comparison-and-contrast method?

3.Do you think the writer's main purpose in the essay is to supply information or to judge the quality of English nursing care versus care in the United States?

4.In your own words, state the thesis of this essay.

Writing Assignments

1.Write an essay comparing and contrasting the teaching styles of two college instructors. Use the point-by-point method to organize your essay.

2.Using the block method of organization, write an essay comparing and contrasting one of the following pairs: older brothers/older sisters, houses/dormitories, riding the bus/walking, or high school classes/college classes.

208 Chapter 6 / Comparison and Contrast

The Difference Between a

Brain and a Computer

Isaac Asimov

Most scientists and knowledgeable observers agree that computers will change our lives more completely than the automobile did, than television did, or than any technological innovation has so far. How far can computers go? Science writer Isaac Asimov here compares the computer with the human brain. His conclusions may frighten you. They're sure to make you stop and think.

Words to Know

components individual parts conceiving forming an idea

mammal the class of animals, including human beings, that have backbones and controlled body temperature and nurse their young

neurons nerve cells

program a set of directions, instructions, or rules

Can a computer think? That depends on what you mean by "think." 4 If solving a mathematical problem is "thinking," then a computer can "think" and do so much faster than a man. Of course, most mathematical problems can be solved quite mechanically by repeating certain straightforward processes over and over again. Even the simple computers of today can be geared for that.

It is frequently said that computers solve problems only because 5 they are "programmed" to do so. They can only do what men have

In other words, once we pass a certain critical point, the computers 10 take over and there is a "complexity explosion." In a very short time thereafter, computers may exist that not only duplicate the human brain—but far surpass it.

Then what? Well, mankind is not doing a very good job of running 11 the earth right now. Maybe, when the time comes, we ought to step gracefully aside and hand over the job to someone who can do it better. And if we don't step aside, perhaps Supercomputer will simply move in and push us aside.

Questions About the Reading

1.What makes the human brain more complex than a computer?

2.Can a computer be built that would duplicate the human brain? Explain your answer.

3.What processes of the human brain can be duplicated by a computer?

4.Can a computer be creative? Explain your answer.

5.What might happen to humanity if a computer were built that could surpass the human brain?

Questions About the Writer's Strategies

1.In your own words, explain the thesis of this essay.

2.What does the writer think of human beings? Which sentences express his attitude?

3.Which paragraphs provide information primarily on the computer? Which paragraphs deal mainly with the human brain? Which does Asimov spend more time describing? Why?

4.Besides comparison and contrast, what primary mode of development does the writer use in forming his paragraphs?

Writing Assignments

1. Write an essay in which you compare and contrast the human memory with the memory of a computer. Do you think each can remember the same kinds of things? Is each equally capable of remembering things?

2.At the end of the essay, Asimov suggests that a supercomputer could one day move in and push people aside. Write an essay comparing a person's everyday life with life in a supercomputer society.

3.Asimov maintains that there is nothing more to the human brain than its material substance—that the brain is just "atoms and molecules in certain arrangements. If anything else is there, no signs of it have ever been detected." Do you agree? Write an essay in which you compare and contrast Asimov's description of the brain with your own views.

Computers

Lewis Thomas

In the preceding essay, Isaac Asimov identifies complexity within the human brain as the unique quality that distinguishes us from computers. In this essay, Lewis Thomas focuses on a broader, external complexity that characterizes the human race—and can never characterize computers.

Words to Know

aggregation mass collection

fallibility a tendency to make mistakes millennium a 1,000-year period syncytium cells fused into a mass of living

material

X ou can make computers that are almost human. In some respects 1 they are superhuman; they can beat most of us at chess, memorize whole telephone books at a glance, compose music of a certain kind and write obscure poetry, diagnose heart ailments, send personal invitations to vast parties, even go transiently crazy. No one has yet programmed a computer to be of two minds about a hard problem, or to burst out laughing, but that may come. Sooner or later, there will be real human hardware, great whirring, clicking cabinets intelligent enough to read magazines and vote, able to think rings around the rest

of us.

Well, maybe, but not for a while anyway. Before we begin organiz- 2 ing sanctuaries and reservations for our software selves, lest we vanish like the whales, here is a thought to relax with.

Even when technology succeeds in manufacturing a machine as big 3 as Texas to do everything we recognize as human, it will still be, at best, a single individual. This amounts to nothing, practically speaking. To match what we can do, there would have to be 3 billion of them with more coming down the assembly line, and I doubt that anyone will put up the money, much less make room. And even so, they would all have to be wired together, intricately and delicately, as we are, communicating with each other, talking incessantly listening. If they weren't at each other this way, all their waking hours, they wouldn't be anything like human, after all. I think we're safe, for a long time ahead.