You’re looking for a great compare and contrast essay topic to kick start your assignment. How can you choose an interesting topic that’s simultaneously narrow yet broad enough to provide you with plenty of great material? In this blog post, I’ll give you 70 compare and contrast essay topics. I’ve also included links to sample essays …
Some of the greatest figures in our human history have been rule breakers. There were the American revolutionaries who refused to pay their taxes without being represented in the British parliament. There was Nelson Mandela who joined the African National Congress and fought against Apartheid, which had been the law of the South African land …
When I arrived at the monkey exhibit at the zoo, it was 3:00 p.m., and there weren’t many people around. There was only one small girl wearing white shorts and blue flip flops and her mom, who was holding a bag filled with snacks and souvenirs from the zoo. When I looked for the monkeys, …
Here’s something you might not know about me. I have amazingly keen powers of observation. Right now, I see a student looking for a little help on an observation essay. Pretty good, huh? But an observation essay isn’t just about listing what you see. In a way, it’s like narrative writing. You need to frame …
Interviews can be fascinating stuff. Watching an interview with your favorite celebrity can keep you on the edge of your seat because you want to know everything about what makes that person tick. On the opposite side of the spectrum are the dull interviews that are about as fascinating as watching paint dry. What makes …
Who says all good books have to be happy ones? The Grapes of Wrath certainly proves this is just not the case. It takes place during the Great Depression, so you know right away that it’s not going to be a particularly uplifting story. But just because the story has a lot of depressing elements …
When I was a six-year-old kindergarten student, I decided (and my parents somehow permitted me) to take a box turtle I found in my backyard to school for Show and Tell. As I rode the bus to school, I was quite excited to show my classmates my new pet. The turtle was even more excited, …
Have you ever wondered what it might be like to just aimlessly wander the country, enjoying the journey instead of worrying about the destination? If so, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road might be the perfect book for you. Many people say that this is a book that changes their whole view on life. That’s because …
Let’s say you just moved into your dorm room, and you’re moving in with a heavy, awkward, flat box that’s soon to become your TV stand. When you open the box, the directions are text only. There are no images to show what screw A or fastener B actually look like and no diagrams to …
Shakespeare is one of those authors who is hard to escape if you’re in any English or literature program long enough. While Shakespeare wrote a lot of plays, they fall roughly into two categories: comedies and tragedies. And when he wrote tragedies, he went all out. Spoiler alert: Most, if not all, of the characters …
It’s the bottom of the ninth, a.k.a. you’re running out of time to start writing your Catcher in the Rye essay, but you still have a chance to make it amazing. The bases are loaded—you’ve read the book and annotated, highlighted, or taken notes about all the important parts. Plus, your coach (that’s me) is …
You’re sitting in the back of a sociology class, trying to focus on the lecture, when the prof brings up a controversial topic, such as abortion, gun control, capital punishment, or marijuana legalization. I’m almost positive that you have a position on every single one of these topics. Knowing where you stand on a topic …
The year 2016 was pretty crazy, wasn’t it? It was the year of the summer Olympics in Brazil, where Michael Phelps won his 13th individual gold medal, breaking a record that was set by Leonidas of Rhodes in 152 BC. The Chicago Cubs won the World Series that year, which was the first time they …
Given the choice between going to the dentist for a root canal and writing an outline for a position paper, I’d guess there are at least of few of you who would choose the root canal—simply because you hate outlining that much. Okay, that’s probably an exaggeration. Writing an outline can’t be that painful, can …
Edward Lorenz was a mathematician and meteorologist at MIT who created a complex mathematical model nearly 60 years ago to study weather and air patterns. His hope was that the research would lead to accurate long-term weather forecasts. However, in 1961, the idea of a predictable universe fell into chaos. Lorenz entered some previously used …
When you were kid, I bet you were asked (and more than once), “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I’ll also bet that, by the time you were a junior or senior in high school, you were asked (and again, more than once), “What do you want to do when you …
The personal essay, it’s an easy enough essay to write… right? We all have stories to tell and opinions on just about everything. The million dollar question is, how do you take your thoughts, ideas, and opinions and put them on paper? How do you let your personality shine through and create a concise, yet …
Every year millions of high school students apply for college. And every year, at least one of those colleges requires a leadership essay. While you may have never served as a manager, fought against injustice, or led a rebellion, you have at least some inklings of leadership inside you. After all, one of the greatest fictional …
“Wow! That stinks!” If you’re walking by a smelly factory, this might be an appropriate response. If you’re walking by a farm on a sweltering summer afternoon, this might be exactly what you’d expect to hear. This is not, however, what you want to hear from your prof when she reads your essay. So if …
Do you remember when Brangelina first happened? Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were both pretty good on their own, but when they got together, they became an instant Hollywood power couple. In the world of literature and essay-writing, the Brangelina of essays is the summary analysis. t By now, you’ve probably written more analysis essays …
Are you the type of person to passively read your assigned text only because you have to? Or do you dive right into it and react with the same intensity any self-proclaimed Star Wars nerd would react to this climactic scene? No matter which category you fall into, knowing how to write a reaction paper …