In a compare-contrast essay – Compare two high-profile professional athletes (or singers or actors).

Begin your research. You might start with a general Google search and then a Google Scholar search, but you will also need to visit the AU Library  databases to find sound academic articles.

Find two to six reputable secondary sources and review them carefully. At least one of these sources should be a peer-reviewed journal article accessed through the AU Library databases (unless your tutor has agreed to waive this requirement).

Based on the information you found in your research, as well as your own brainstorming, develop a straightforward thesis that is sufficiently limited in scope (meaning that you can do justice to it in a short essay).

Create a very brief outline of the main points you plan to cover in your essay.

Write the first draft of your essay. Your essay must be approximately 1,000 to 1,200 words in length (about four double-spaced typed pages).

As you write, integrate information from your research. Of the two to six sources you located and reviewed in Step 3, choose at least two (and no more than four) secondary sources to use within your essay, and then add quotations and paraphrases from them. Every time you paraphrase or quote, follow these four steps to cite and integrate the source properly:

1. Introduce the source.
2. Present the research.
3. Credit the source parenthetically.
4. Discuss.

In other words, include “quotation sandwiches” and “paraphrase sandwiches” in your essay. Don’t just drop in quotations or paraphrases from sources into your essay. (Some experts call these “hit-and-run quotations,” “dropped quotations,” or “floating quotations.”)

Create a bibliography that lists every source you cited in your essay. (In MLA style, this page is titled “Works Cited,” while in APA style it is titled “References.”) Take this task seriously. We expect you to pay very close attention to detail and follow samples for each entry. We recommend the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)  for all citation matters. Remember that your tutor is there for you, so if you have consulted the citation guidelines and still have questions, please ask for help.

Thinking about your essay-in-progress, review the checklist “15 Common Research Errors in First-Year Papers” in Part 2, Section 10 of AOW, and consider whether your essay requires revision.