Choosing The Best Compare Contrast Essay Topics For College

College essays can take many different flavors. You may be asked to writer persuasively, argumentatively or in any other similar field. This cornucopia of choice is excellent for becoming a well rounded writer and a student who is able to think on his or her feet.

One of the more common essay types is the compare and contrast. Most things that are different have at least a few things in common and even things that appear identical on the surface must differ in some ways. Here are some things to keep in mind as you search for a topic:

Know the audience

The topic that would work well for a room full of your peers might not be appreciated as much by your professor or your parents or anyone else. Sometime this is just a matter of differing tastes, other times, you may have such an unpopular opinion that your readers would simply be outraged by the connections you make.

Have a good grasp of current events

Picking topics is always easier when you know what is going on in the world. Read newspapers online and follow informative blogs. You will learn things that help you to think outside of the box and write outside of it too.

Read widely

Newspapers are a good start but it’s a good idea to expand way beyond that. Look at fiction, try picking up another language and consuming literature from the related culture. Your ideas will be very different as a result.

Consider the following ideas for a start:

  1. How has this decade been different from and similar to the one that preceded it?
  2. Create a secure comparison between murder and the consumption of meat
  3. How is religion comparable to the use of alcohol or other drugs?
  4. What makes the entrepreneurial path different from the traditional 9 to 5 route?
  5. How did the character of Atticus Finch change between ‘To Kill A mockingbird’ and ‘Go Set a Watchman’
  6. How has the concept of childhood evolved or stagnated over the past century?
  7. Can the use of cannabis be compared to that of prescription drugs?
  8. Can the use of social media be successfully contrasted with roman games or are they too similar?
  9. How does the death penalty stack up against concerted efforts at rehabilitation?
  10. Does the music industry of today stack up well against that of previous generations?
