Sample of a paragraph developed by comparison/contrast:

In the paragraph below, a writer draws differences between student nurses and regular staff on a
hospital unit. Notice how the writer makes a comparison between the dress and behavior of the
two groups to draw a conclusion about the relative powerlessness of the nursing students.

(1)In morning report, the nursing students were always obvious, even to the

casual observer. (2)Their uniforms marked them, of course.(3) Unlike the grads in

their crisp, white cotton dresses and caps, all the students were dressed in

robins-egg blue polyester tops and skirts.(4) Their shoes, too, were a dead give-

away. (5)While the old-timers wore scuffed, white duty shoes, broken down by

miles of walking the hospital corridors, the students shoes were pristine, freshly

polished before each shift in case of a snap inspection by the surgical instructor.

(6)The most telling detail, however, was the way the students all perched around

the edges of the room on stools, leaving the chairs around the conference table

for the regular staff. (7)No one had ever explicitly told them that they couldnt sit

at the table; no one had to. (8)They just automatically took their places on the

periphery, giving deference to the nurses who worked on the unit. (9)No one had

to tell them either, that while the regular staff could talk during report, they could

not.(10) Each morning, as the night-duty nurse read report, the regular staff

laughed and joked about the patients and each other, but the students, not daring

so much as a peep, leaned in, waiting to catch each crumb of information about

the patients entrusted to them that day. (11) In those days, neither staff nor

instructors ever left a first year student nurse with any doubt about the position

she held in the hierarchy.

o In sentence (1), the writer introduces one of the groups she will compare, then, in
sentences (2) and (3), introduces the first point of comparison (uniforms) and makes the
comparison (crisp white vs. blue polyester).
o In sentences (4)-(8), the writer introduces two more points of comparison, using a point-
by-point structure to develop the paragraph.
o In sentences (9) and (10), the writer introduces and develops the final point of
comparison, and then in sentence (11), draws a conclusion about the power differences
between the two groups, based on the comparison.