The following is an explanation of the difference
between a paper that is merely a comparison/contrast paper and a paper
that makes an argument using the technique of comparison/contrast.
Here goes: This is an example that I hope illustrates what I'm talking
about. We've been using nursery rhymes as our
example texts, so this is in that vein: two theses about "Jack and Jill"
and "Humpty Dumpty."
Example 1: Both nursery rhymes share a central concern with the violence that can result from carelessness. "Humpty Dumpty" and "Jack and Jill" have similarities and differences in the way they portray this violence. Humpty Dumpty is an egg, while Jack and Jill are humans. Humpty Dumpty falls off a wall, and Jack and Jill instead fall down a hill. And finally, "Humpty Dumpty" features an attempt by "all the king's horses and all the king's men" to treat the injuries sustained in the fall, while Jack and Jill has no such attempt.
The hypothetical writer of Example 1's paper could
go on to write body paragraphs developing the three ideas contained in
the partition, but doing so would not really result in a paper that features
a
sustained argument in which the body paragraphs
are related to each other conceptually, although they might be related
to each other formally through the creation of mechanical transition statements.
This example doesn't do much other than say there are similarities and
differences.
By contrast, the following thesis features a central
argument.
Example 2: Although both nursery rhymes share
a central concern with the violence that can result from carelessness,
"Humpty Dumpty" presents a more hopeful vision of community than "Jack
and Jill." Now, I'm not providing a partition for this example because
the details are not necessarily important, but you can imagine three points
that would *support* the idea that there is "a more hopeful vision of community"
in "Humpty Dumpty" than in "Jack and Jill" For example, one point
could be that "Humpty Dumpty" ends with people
coming to Humpty's aid, but "Jack and Jill" does not.
So, while example 1 just observes that there are
similarities and differences, example 2 goes one step further and makes
an argument based on those similarities and differences.
You should do the same thing in your papers if
you are focusing on similarities and differences.